Jeffrey Rubard
2022-01-20 11:20:43 UTC
A not-quite-parlor game Americans play thinking about science and social history is to come up with deep and sharp examples of "What if..." that can for a second be assessed plausibility. Here's one I've been "woodshedding" in Portland for a few months regarding the identity of William Shakespeare.
Four hypotheses as to who "Shakespeare" (the name is obviously a pseudonym in its context) was.
The "Twain hypothesis" that he was Edward de Vere is perhaps the weakest, a tiresome Americanist hobby-horse like "George Washington slept here". De Vere was a nobleman, and in their time the dialects of nobleman and commoner were very sharply separated: Shakespeare's work clearly belongs to the second grouping.
The "Boswell hypothesis" that he was Ben Jonson would be, from the standpoint of literary history, implausible but possible. Jonson, that famous patron of 16th century "molly houses", was so prolific under his own name that you could even really think that he invented "Shakespeare" as a sop to those who did not like his own style. It would be possible, somehow, given how those things were put together. But it is not likely.
The "Scientific hypothesis" that it was Francis Bacon is to be warned against. The veneration of Bacon caused it to be examine quite definitely as to whether he wrote the plays of Shakespeare, and the "expert consensus" is a pretty definite no. So if you see a decal that says "Francis Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare", as appears on a Portland street now and again, you'd better get to running instead.
The "Irish hypothesis"? "Oh, that is too rich." John Dowland was a music composer who emigrated from Ireland to London and is well-known for various works like "Seven Teares", songs that bear a strong stylistic similarity to Shakespeare's sonnets. Perhaps Shakespeare was Dowland. "What?" It's just that you'd figured the character of "the Bard" away from his actual thematic preoccupations.
Jeffrey Rubard
Four hypotheses as to who "Shakespeare" (the name is obviously a pseudonym in its context) was.
The "Twain hypothesis" that he was Edward de Vere is perhaps the weakest, a tiresome Americanist hobby-horse like "George Washington slept here". De Vere was a nobleman, and in their time the dialects of nobleman and commoner were very sharply separated: Shakespeare's work clearly belongs to the second grouping.
The "Boswell hypothesis" that he was Ben Jonson would be, from the standpoint of literary history, implausible but possible. Jonson, that famous patron of 16th century "molly houses", was so prolific under his own name that you could even really think that he invented "Shakespeare" as a sop to those who did not like his own style. It would be possible, somehow, given how those things were put together. But it is not likely.
The "Scientific hypothesis" that it was Francis Bacon is to be warned against. The veneration of Bacon caused it to be examine quite definitely as to whether he wrote the plays of Shakespeare, and the "expert consensus" is a pretty definite no. So if you see a decal that says "Francis Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare", as appears on a Portland street now and again, you'd better get to running instead.
The "Irish hypothesis"? "Oh, that is too rich." John Dowland was a music composer who emigrated from Ireland to London and is well-known for various works like "Seven Teares", songs that bear a strong stylistic similarity to Shakespeare's sonnets. Perhaps Shakespeare was Dowland. "What?" It's just that you'd figured the character of "the Bard" away from his actual thematic preoccupations.
Jeffrey Rubard