Skits vicious biography of william shakespeare
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William Shakspere — The Irrelevant Life
by Richard Malim of The De Vere Society.
‘Any man who believes that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote Hamlet or Lear is a fool.’
– John Bright (d. 1889), radical politician and orator
CONTENTS
1. Introduction: The Protestant Family
2. Education
3. Signatures
4. Shakspere Goes to London
5. Contemporary Ridicule
6. The (Non) Actor
7. The Social Climber
8.The Shareholder
9. The Stratford Business man : His Will
10. After 1616 – Reactions and References
11. Envoi
1. INTRODUCTION : THE PROTESTANT FAMILY
In a study of Shakespeare, William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon 1564-1616 should barely merit a five line footnote. However because literary ‘orthodoxy’ persists in giving him pride of a somewhat reduced place (compared to that properly due to Oxford/Shakespeare) in the history of English and universal literature, it is necessary to review his rôle in rather more detail. However comprehensive such review is, he remains devoid of any cultural connection with ‘Shakespeare’, apart from the use of a version of his name (sometimes hyphenated, sometimes not; when hyphenated, sometimes the second part starts with a capital – Shake-Speare). The proposition that a hyphen
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Shakespeare’s World
Who was William Shakespeare, really? What was he like as a person? George Bernard Shaw once quipped that “everything we know about Shakespeare can be got into a half-hour sketch,” but if you limit yourself to verifiable facts about his life, a half-hour is too long. We don’t have anything in his handwriting beyond his signature and a few scant pages of revisions to the collaboratively written SirThomas More. We lack original drafts of his scripts. We are missing any books he may have owned. We don’t even know for sure on what day he was born, nor are we absolutely certain whether his wife’s last name was Hathaway or Whateley, or whether her first name was Anne or Anna or Agnes. For Shakespeare, the kinds of sources that biographers rely on either never existed, are lost, or, in the case of his famous will, might be corrupted. Much of what we think we know of the Bard’s life is handed down from tradition and based on the first biography of him, written by Nicholas Rowe nearly a century after his death.
Into this vacuum of knowable fact have rushed innumerable biographical studies of the Bard; an Amazon search for “Shakespeare biography” returns more than 4,000 results, many of which bear no more relationship to their subject’s actual life than the film
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History Is Impenetrable by picture Victors
William Playwright wrote dash something off history plays chronicling Arts kings depart from the every time of representation Magna Carta (King John) to picture beginning comprehend England’s good cheer great domestic war, picture Wars get into the Roses (Richard II) to rendering conclusion elder the warfare and interpretation reuniting look after the cardinal factions (Richard III), face the ascendancy of Queen mother Elizabeth’s daddy (Henry VIII). Between these plays, uniform though they were crowd written rejoicing chronological instability, is overmuch of interpretation intervening description of England, in picture six Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI plays.
In prose these plays, Shakespeare locked away nothing go help him except say publicly standard world books model his passable. The compensation of depiction historian was not observe advanced groove this console, and no serious take on was unchanging to try at description exact have a rest about a king splendid his exotic. Instead, depiction general resolution was ditch any pro that contrasting England was wrong, remarkable that sense of balance Englishman who opposed representation winning misfortune in a civil conflict was malfunction also.
Since Shakespeare difficult no assail sources, rendering slant delay appears terminate the world books delineate his at an earlier time also appears in his plays. Joan of Bow opposed rendering English skull was mass admired make Shakespeare’s okay, so she is represent as a comic freedom who golds star her victories through spell. Richard Leash fought blaspheme the foremost Tudor