The augmented picture below of pages 1038-1041 of Thomas North’s Plutarch’s Lives is one of Jacob Waller’s favorite proofs of North’s original authorship of one of Shakespeare’s plays.
"I am not an anti-Stratfordian, but do appreciate many of their arguments about the disconnect between Shakespeare and the plays. For example, the plays contain a considerable amount of inside information about Italy—even though there is no evidence that Shakespeare ever left England. Still, I agree with conventional scholars and all the documented evidence confirms Shakespeare’s existence and his work as a playwright."
For over a decade now, I've been using the term "post-Stratfordian" (a friend coined it, and I embraced it two nanoseconds later) to describe my own particular POV on the role of Shakespeare of Stratford. By using this term, I'm trying to communicate my desire to peer BEYOND the standard mythmaking and the "miracle of genius" storylines woven around Shakespeare of Stratford by the last few generations of academics and pop biographers, alike.
To my mind, Shakespeare of Stratford, the fellow of Burbage, et al, is OF COURSE the man who was publicly being credited in 1590s and 1600s London, with creating a host of plays performed by the LC's & King's Men...and eventually printed and sold during his lifetime. He was just as surely considered as a playwright by various theater contemporaries, and, as a sharer in the company, intimately concerned with getting all LC's Men / King's Men productions from "page to stage". Period evidence makes this role plain to the vast majority of rational people, IMO.
The central question for a post-Stratfordian is this: "In light of the towering content found in the plays attributed to him, and considering what we know about Shakespeare's socio-economic background, his education and his travels & life journey, exactly HOW did he manage to do it?".
Any anti-Stratfordian theorist who suggests that Shakespeare of Stratford was just a barely literate, bumbling yokel acting as a front man, or worse yet, that he never really existed at all...and that the name "Shakespeare" was just an empty nom de plume or placeholder, must immediately resort to logical contortions worthy of a circus performer.
The real tragedy is that, in doing so, such vehemently anti-Stratfordian theorists not only destroy their own credibility with the average Shakespeare fan, but also the credibility of anyone else daring to ask logical and reasonable questions, including those regarding Shakespeare's typical working methods, his access to source materials and background knowledge, his possible writing associates/collaborators, and many other "how did he do it" type inquiries. That 'loss of credibility by association' is a major problem...
The other major problem with being a post-Stratfordian, is that it can be a fairly lonely road. One winds up being hated by both sides of the debate. Bullying, orthodox, brown-shirts protest your daring to ask 'uncomfortable questions' as they denounce the sin of "focusing too much on gossipy details rather than the works themselves" while hardcore anti-Stratfordians eye you with wariness (at best) or deep suspicion (at worst) for your refusal to denounce Shakespeare as the completely illiterate country bumpkin, which they hold him to be. It's not an easy path to walk.
Luckily, there is a long line of independent-minded scholarly research and writing, dating back to at least the 1800s, which supports the notion that Shakespeare's playwrighting efforts were centered as much around adaption, as they were with creation from a blank-page.
It seems to me, Dennis, that (when it comes to the role of Shakespeare of Stratford) you, and your prime collaborator June, are not only the latest in a very distinguished line of independent-minded scholars, but are likely in the process of going well beyond all of their discoveries combined.
Add this to your own remarkable discoveries involving North's central importance to the entire canon...with regards to vocabulary, storyline details, intellectual content, etc. ("the whole shebang", as the saying goes)...and you can see why I believe that you are literally changing the world of Shakespeare scholarship, as we know it.
-JDL
P.S. I suspect that its going to be a very bumpy ride for you on a personal level (think of Wegener and Semmelweis) but I have seen that you are built to survive on even the roughest parts of the journey. I also know that truth will out in the end...with posterity eventually giving credit where credit was due. For the past few years, I've mostly just been watching you "enjoy the ride"...still am I guess...but in the future, I'm hoping to accompany you on a few side excursions along the way.
This is indeed one of my favourite arguments - and I'm still finding myself having to digest it every time I come across it. There's just so much information! Fantastic as always
I thought I had responded to this somewhere, but perhaps not. I have a paper in development on Winter’s Tale so planned to provide a comprehensive answer there, but have other commitments first. With respect to this argument, I am afraid I don’t quite understand, so perhaps you can clarify for me. I believe your core argument is that North wrote a history play circa 1556-7 as a celebration of then Queen Mary, which included elements of the trial of her mother Katherine. You appear to be arguing here that definitive proof for the existence of this earlier play is that Greene’s Pandosto and Shakespeare’s Winter Tale both borrow from North’s Plutarch descriptions of Mediterranean Sea voyages that appear within a few lines of each other in North. It is indisputable that the published version of Winter’s Tale follows Pandosto by some time, and also that Shakespeare renamed characters with names taken from North’s Plutarch, one of his favorite sources. The obvious explanation for the coincidence of the source passages is that having swapped the countries from Greene’s story, Shakespeare needed a description for a voyage which ended in Sicily, and with Plutarch in front of him, recognized the source for Greene and utilized the immediately following passage which served his purpose. What I do not understand is how North could have drawn from this source in 1557 when it did not exist until 1580. Scholar’s generally date North’s work to 1579, in any event he could not have begun, let alone finished the work (Dion is toward the end), as the primary source for his translation, Amyot’s French version, was not published until 1559. There is an extent letter dating mid seventies in which Philip Sidney pleads with Hubert Languet to secure a copy of Amyot and send it to him, as both Sidney and North were in the service of Leicester, it is likely the very copy which North used for his translation.
I'm not sure you carefully read the post to which you're responding--or studied the picture. Are you really suggesting the following two things occurred? First, Greene just randomly plucked one of the dozens of sea-storms in Plutarch's Lives to use in Pandosto--choosing one from pages 1039-1040? And then Shakespeare, when he started adapting Pandosto, randomly began on those same pages--1038-1040 of Plutarch and took the names Polixenes and Dion?
You write: "Shakespeare renamed characters with names taken from North’s Plutarch, one of his favorite sources."
My response: Exactly. The playwright also got the names of Theseus and Hippolyta for MND, Pericles for Pericles, and of course all the characters in the Roman tragedies and many for Timon of Athens from this same source. This means that the WT's use of Plutarchan names has priority--and is entirely unrelated to Pandosto.
You write: "Shakespeare needed a description for a voyage which ended in Sicily, and with Plutarch in front of him"
My response: Please forgive the all-caps, but I do think you're missing this point: You think Shakespeare had Plutarch in front of him RANDOMLY OPEN TO PAGE 1039? You think that both Greene and Shakespeare randomly opened up PLutarch and both turned to page 1039?
[PS. Even swallowing that coincidence won't help because, as I note above, North’s Dial (a different large translation) is the origin of the Isle of Delphos error in both Green’s prose work and Shakespeare’s play, and each work includes different elements and language from North’s Oracle-related stories. So now you have them borrowing from the same pages of two different works of North.) Finally, as I note in the post, North, as he frequently did, had clearly adapted his early Marian work after he wrote Plutarch--renaming his characters from two of his chapters therein. North was an inveterate reviser.
I remember sitting in my study, reading your and June's book on these topics (back in the Spring of '22?) and my jaw figuratively 'hitting the floor' when I got to these exact discoveries.
My 1st reaction was: Game, set, match... From now on, their research can't ever be wholly ignored again. It will be attacked...maybe even purposefully misrepresented by those willing to make shady claims...but it cannot just be dismissed without comment ever again. It's just too big.
My next thought was: These are some REALLY inconvenient truths...heads are gonna be exploding over at the Birthplace Trust.
Dennis, you wrote:
"I am not an anti-Stratfordian, but do appreciate many of their arguments about the disconnect between Shakespeare and the plays. For example, the plays contain a considerable amount of inside information about Italy—even though there is no evidence that Shakespeare ever left England. Still, I agree with conventional scholars and all the documented evidence confirms Shakespeare’s existence and his work as a playwright."
For over a decade now, I've been using the term "post-Stratfordian" (a friend coined it, and I embraced it two nanoseconds later) to describe my own particular POV on the role of Shakespeare of Stratford. By using this term, I'm trying to communicate my desire to peer BEYOND the standard mythmaking and the "miracle of genius" storylines woven around Shakespeare of Stratford by the last few generations of academics and pop biographers, alike.
To my mind, Shakespeare of Stratford, the fellow of Burbage, et al, is OF COURSE the man who was publicly being credited in 1590s and 1600s London, with creating a host of plays performed by the LC's & King's Men...and eventually printed and sold during his lifetime. He was just as surely considered as a playwright by various theater contemporaries, and, as a sharer in the company, intimately concerned with getting all LC's Men / King's Men productions from "page to stage". Period evidence makes this role plain to the vast majority of rational people, IMO.
The central question for a post-Stratfordian is this: "In light of the towering content found in the plays attributed to him, and considering what we know about Shakespeare's socio-economic background, his education and his travels & life journey, exactly HOW did he manage to do it?".
Any anti-Stratfordian theorist who suggests that Shakespeare of Stratford was just a barely literate, bumbling yokel acting as a front man, or worse yet, that he never really existed at all...and that the name "Shakespeare" was just an empty nom de plume or placeholder, must immediately resort to logical contortions worthy of a circus performer.
The real tragedy is that, in doing so, such vehemently anti-Stratfordian theorists not only destroy their own credibility with the average Shakespeare fan, but also the credibility of anyone else daring to ask logical and reasonable questions, including those regarding Shakespeare's typical working methods, his access to source materials and background knowledge, his possible writing associates/collaborators, and many other "how did he do it" type inquiries. That 'loss of credibility by association' is a major problem...
The other major problem with being a post-Stratfordian, is that it can be a fairly lonely road. One winds up being hated by both sides of the debate. Bullying, orthodox, brown-shirts protest your daring to ask 'uncomfortable questions' as they denounce the sin of "focusing too much on gossipy details rather than the works themselves" while hardcore anti-Stratfordians eye you with wariness (at best) or deep suspicion (at worst) for your refusal to denounce Shakespeare as the completely illiterate country bumpkin, which they hold him to be. It's not an easy path to walk.
Luckily, there is a long line of independent-minded scholarly research and writing, dating back to at least the 1800s, which supports the notion that Shakespeare's playwrighting efforts were centered as much around adaption, as they were with creation from a blank-page.
It seems to me, Dennis, that (when it comes to the role of Shakespeare of Stratford) you, and your prime collaborator June, are not only the latest in a very distinguished line of independent-minded scholars, but are likely in the process of going well beyond all of their discoveries combined.
Add this to your own remarkable discoveries involving North's central importance to the entire canon...with regards to vocabulary, storyline details, intellectual content, etc. ("the whole shebang", as the saying goes)...and you can see why I believe that you are literally changing the world of Shakespeare scholarship, as we know it.
-JDL
P.S. I suspect that its going to be a very bumpy ride for you on a personal level (think of Wegener and Semmelweis) but I have seen that you are built to survive on even the roughest parts of the journey. I also know that truth will out in the end...with posterity eventually giving credit where credit was due. For the past few years, I've mostly just been watching you "enjoy the ride"...still am I guess...but in the future, I'm hoping to accompany you on a few side excursions along the way.
Keep writing, Sir. Keep writing...
This is indeed one of my favourite arguments - and I'm still finding myself having to digest it every time I come across it. There's just so much information! Fantastic as always
I thought I had responded to this somewhere, but perhaps not. I have a paper in development on Winter’s Tale so planned to provide a comprehensive answer there, but have other commitments first. With respect to this argument, I am afraid I don’t quite understand, so perhaps you can clarify for me. I believe your core argument is that North wrote a history play circa 1556-7 as a celebration of then Queen Mary, which included elements of the trial of her mother Katherine. You appear to be arguing here that definitive proof for the existence of this earlier play is that Greene’s Pandosto and Shakespeare’s Winter Tale both borrow from North’s Plutarch descriptions of Mediterranean Sea voyages that appear within a few lines of each other in North. It is indisputable that the published version of Winter’s Tale follows Pandosto by some time, and also that Shakespeare renamed characters with names taken from North’s Plutarch, one of his favorite sources. The obvious explanation for the coincidence of the source passages is that having swapped the countries from Greene’s story, Shakespeare needed a description for a voyage which ended in Sicily, and with Plutarch in front of him, recognized the source for Greene and utilized the immediately following passage which served his purpose. What I do not understand is how North could have drawn from this source in 1557 when it did not exist until 1580. Scholar’s generally date North’s work to 1579, in any event he could not have begun, let alone finished the work (Dion is toward the end), as the primary source for his translation, Amyot’s French version, was not published until 1559. There is an extent letter dating mid seventies in which Philip Sidney pleads with Hubert Languet to secure a copy of Amyot and send it to him, as both Sidney and North were in the service of Leicester, it is likely the very copy which North used for his translation.
I'm not sure you carefully read the post to which you're responding--or studied the picture. Are you really suggesting the following two things occurred? First, Greene just randomly plucked one of the dozens of sea-storms in Plutarch's Lives to use in Pandosto--choosing one from pages 1039-1040? And then Shakespeare, when he started adapting Pandosto, randomly began on those same pages--1038-1040 of Plutarch and took the names Polixenes and Dion?
You write: "Shakespeare renamed characters with names taken from North’s Plutarch, one of his favorite sources."
My response: Exactly. The playwright also got the names of Theseus and Hippolyta for MND, Pericles for Pericles, and of course all the characters in the Roman tragedies and many for Timon of Athens from this same source. This means that the WT's use of Plutarchan names has priority--and is entirely unrelated to Pandosto.
You write: "Shakespeare needed a description for a voyage which ended in Sicily, and with Plutarch in front of him"
My response: Please forgive the all-caps, but I do think you're missing this point: You think Shakespeare had Plutarch in front of him RANDOMLY OPEN TO PAGE 1039? You think that both Greene and Shakespeare randomly opened up PLutarch and both turned to page 1039?
[PS. Even swallowing that coincidence won't help because, as I note above, North’s Dial (a different large translation) is the origin of the Isle of Delphos error in both Green’s prose work and Shakespeare’s play, and each work includes different elements and language from North’s Oracle-related stories. So now you have them borrowing from the same pages of two different works of North.) Finally, as I note in the post, North, as he frequently did, had clearly adapted his early Marian work after he wrote Plutarch--renaming his characters from two of his chapters therein. North was an inveterate reviser.
I remember sitting in my study, reading your and June's book on these topics (back in the Spring of '22?) and my jaw figuratively 'hitting the floor' when I got to these exact discoveries.
My 1st reaction was: Game, set, match... From now on, their research can't ever be wholly ignored again. It will be attacked...maybe even purposefully misrepresented by those willing to make shady claims...but it cannot just be dismissed without comment ever again. It's just too big.
My next thought was: These are some REALLY inconvenient truths...heads are gonna be exploding over at the Birthplace Trust.
-JDL
What about Christopher Marlowe?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WWmYxDHCmoM&t=1s
Marlowe was born after “The Winter’s Tale” was first written