Vanessa Redgrave quickie

That didn't come out right. Andrew Marr has a pop.

Mark ye me, I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair…

Ten minutes with Mark Rylance is never wasted…

Let's hear it for the spear

A little off topic, but here's proof that one little prick can overturn a paradigm. Titter ye not.
Old American theory is 'speared'

What's in a name?

The luminosity of the combatants in the debate glows ever-brighter as Simon Schama pops his head above the parapet to offer his groatsworth on the authorship non-question in Newsweek – The Shakespeare Shakedown. Now, I happen to have read Rembrandt's Eyes and The Embarrassment of Riches, both by the aforementioned historian, and they were two of the most enjoyable history books I have read, for what it may be worth. So imagine my disappointment on reading the following in Schama's article:

"None of which would matter very much were there not something repellent at the heart of the theory, and that something is the toad, snobbery—the engine that drives the Oxfordian case against the son of the Stratford glover John Shakespeare. John was indeed illiterate. But his son was not, as we know incontrovertibly from no fewer than six surviving signatures in Shakespeare’s own flowing hand, the first from 1612, when he was giving evidence in a domestic lawsuit."

Where we might have hoped for some devastating synthesis of hitherto unconsidered or unconnected facts, we get the (repeated so sadly often in this blog) refrain: "snobs, snobs, yer all snobs!"

Furthermore, whilst I am endeavouring at all costs not to sully these posts with the actual arguments one way or the other in this struggle, it is hard to resist (so I won't) taking Schama to task on the one substantive claim he makes in the above:

"John was indeed illiterate. But his son was not, as we know incontrovertibly from no fewer than six surviving signatures in Shakespeare’s own flowing hand"

It is indeed very instructive to look at the Shakespeare signatures, as much for what it can tell us about historians as about the author of Cymbeline. But before we examine those of the Bard, here are a few signatures in the flowing hands of other noted writers of the period.

First, the beloved Queen herself:

Second (boo! hiss!) you know who…

Third, courtier poet (and mortal foe of the above) Sir Philip Sidney:

Fourth, bricklayer, murderer (and sometime poet) Ben Jonson:

All pretty natty eh? And lastly, not to be outdone, here's one by the Soul of the Age himself:

Actually, that's a bit cack, try this one:

Mmm, does that say Splatsyor? Not sure. What about this one?

Same handwriting so far? Well, to be fair they were all written at different times on different documents, so maybe the Bard alternated his (three) hands. But the remaining signatures all come from the same final document, Shakespeare's will:

 And he couldn't even do those three the same way? Remember this man wrote the best part of a million words, with a feather. One might reasonably expect him to have decided on one signature, or may be one spelling – even if he was determined not to be neat. 

Of course it is the discrepancies between these signatures, and the apparent absence of much art in any of them, that lead some to propose (and not just anti-Stratfordians, some sane people too) that they are all (with the possible exception of the last two) written by different hands. Perhaps they say, the signatures  were added by clerks, on behalf of the signatory, who did not apply the pen himself because he was elsewhere at the time, and at the end was too weak to hold a steady quill. Others go in a different direction, and infer that the glover's son wrote none of these signatures for the simple reason that he could not write at all.

But as to "Shakespeare’s own flowing hand" that demonstrates "incontrovertibly" the literacy of illiterate John Shakespeare's son, well, perhaps we need Rembrandt's discerning eyes, or at least those of a celebrated historian, to see it. 

Get thee to a Nunnery

Mark Rylance and Sir Trev Nunn toe-to-toe in Saturday's Guardian, So Who Did Write Shakespeare? Rylance puts Francis Bacon, de Vere, and Mary Sidney at or near the scene of the crime, and it seems likely that IF there was something going on around 'Shakespeare' it involved a group of interested parties, each involved for different reasons. Many blows are traded, but interestingly no knock-out punch from Trev. If it  really is so obvious that anti-Stratfordians are daft - why doesn't he, of all people have it up his sleeve? The post list following the article demonstrates the extremes of feeling the subject provokes. Even those who are indifferent are really angry about just how indifferent they are.

Ten reasons by Roland Emmerich

This is a bit of a must see.

All for one and one for Allfordians

Interesting review of Charles Beauclerk's Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom by Bill Niederkorn, New York Times columnist and self-styled 'All-fordian'. Allfordians, I think, might be characterised as people who think Shakespeare was the Stratford man, or someone else - but not both. Wittgenstein would not approve.

The review is lengthy, but worth a look, as Niederkorn provides an all-too-rare example of what Shakespeare lit crit might look like if it were to be accepted that there is an authorship question. He reviews Beauclerk's book as if it contains an argument, rather than as a work of paranoid fantasy. He's interested in the interesting stuff, and sceptical of many of the claims - in other words, he's not a loony. Perhaps the future belongs to the Allfordians.