POETICKS

Diana Price’s Brilliant Work of Propaganda Against Shakespeare

If you for some reason were consumed with a need to use any means whatever, however dishonest, to convince airheads that Shakespeare did not write the works attributed to him, it would be near-impossible for you to do a better job of it than Diana Price did with her book of 2001, Shakespeare’s Unorthodox Biography.

Needless to say, it would be futile to try to demonstrate this to Price’s admirers, none of them minimally blessed with critical sense.  Still, a detailed analysis of so near-perfect an example of propagandistic techniques, done effectively, should do much to advance the study of the nature and application of what I call Phobosophy, for hatred of truth.  Hence, this essay.

Price’s assault on Shakespeare–as Shakespeare-deniers from Delia Bacon on have for over a century-and-a-half now have–by coming up with a “Shakespeare-Elimination Mechanism.”  The traditional one has been one I term the “Appellational Shakespeare-Elimination Ploy.”  Obviously, the biggest thing Will (as I will henceforth call the known author) has going for him regarding his authorship is his name on title-pages.  Hence, the almost-immediate employment of this ploy by those against him.  It is simply the claim that the use of Will’s name on any document must do more than name him to be useful evidence for his authorship; it must also have corroborating evidence that it is a reference to the man in Stratford attached to it.  Only something along the lines of  “William Shakespeare of Stratford,” for instance, or “W. Shakspere, player with the King’s Men,” can count as meaningful appellational evidence that Will was an author.

Of no importance at all to those using this ploy is the fact that scholars concerned with literary history need only his full name (if that, since sometimes a set of initials is enough) to accept any other author of the time as the man named but John Davies (c. 1565 – 1618) and John Davies (1569 – 1626).  Those two they generally, and understandably, require more for: his place residence (Hereford) of the first, his honorific (“Sir”) of the second.

I would never disagree that a name alone is not sufficient to prove it refers to a given man who uses that name.  Shakespeare-deniers, however, seldom, if ever, stop there.  Their tendency to be excessively prone to what I call “anti-continuumism” (i.e., either/or thinking, or the excluded middle logical fallacy) causes them to dismiss a name alone as evidentiarily irrelevant!  They treat “William Shakespeare” on a book’s title-page where one would expect an author’s name  not as merely more weakly naming the actual author of the book as others would but as not doing that.  True, none of them, if pressed, would deny that it is indeed evidence of that, but they act and write against Will as though it were not.

Be that as it may, over the years this ploy has been been shot down too often for even Shakespeare-deniers to be comfortable with it.  The monument to Shakespeare in his hometown church, for instance, includes too much more than his name for the play to work, as well as describes him as a writer equal to Virgil.  And Leonard Digges speaks of his Stratford monument, and acting career in a poem praising him as a writer in the First Folio.  A better version of the ploy was needed.

Gradually the Chronological Shakespeare-Elimination Ploy evolved.  It is based on the proposition that a name doesn’t (really) refer to an author unless employed while he was living! This was a brilliant move because, by chance, there was for a long time almost no known reference to Will as an author while he was alive that is accompanied by any text clearly and instantly corroborating that the name applies to him.

There was some, though, although it consisted of combinations of evidence rather than a single piece of evidence.  Will’s bequests to Condell, Heminges and Burbage in his will which directly identify him as an actor in the troupe responsible for almost all the premieres of the Shakespearean plays is half of one such combination.  Or a Herald’s College reference to “Shakespear ye Player” which includes the coat of arms of the Stratford Shakespeare family can be substituted for this.

One of the following can complete the combination: either of two poems by John Davies of Hereford which states that Will was both an actor associated with Burbage and a poet; the references in The Return from Parnassus, Part II, in which Shakespeare is referred to as both actor and playwright; and the reference to “Shake-scene,” who is clearly Shakespeare the author, because a line from a play by Shakespeare is said to be his, in Greenes Groatsworth of Witte, as an actor.

Ergo, some evidence from his lifetime demonstrates that Will was as actor named Shakespeare, and the same actor was the poet Shakespeare.  It fails to do nail down his having been the poet as unarguably as the monument inscription or Digges’s poem does.  What does do that are the handful of references to Shakespeare the poet in which he is given the honorific “Mr.”  Since Will was the only Shakespeare in England besides his father, and the only William Shakespeare while he himself was alive, qualified to use this honorific (so far as we know) these instances of “Mr.” are single pieces of direct explicit evidence from Will’s lifetime as strongly in support of his having been The True Author as the First Folio and the monument.  Because they have become part of the case for Will only very recently, however, it is understandable that so few of his deniers have dealt with it.

Price’s first and, in my opinion, finest move was to do something about the chronological Shakespeare-Elimination Ploy’s ever-more-visible ineffectiveness.  She didn’t discard it, though.  Indeed, it is the first weapon in her arsenal against Will. Just as previous wacks had kept the Appellational Shakespeare-Elimination Ploy even though its proposition that names don’t count without an address or the like was no longer able to eliminate Will by reshaping it ever so slightly as the Chronological Shakespeare-Elimination Ploy proposing that names don’t count without an address or the like that are not from the named person’s lifetime, Price came through with a reshaping of the chronological play!

In her standard Shakespeare-denying hunt for evidence that Will doesn’t have, which is the sole evidence that can be used against him, she was the first to notice that no one during his lifetime indicated that he knew him in person when referring to him as an author!  (Or so she thought, or thought she could get away with claiming.  I will later demonstrate that she was wrong.)  The result: the stunningly clever Personal-Knowledge Shakespeare-Elimination Ploy which holds that names don’t count without and address or the like that are not contemporaneous (i.e., from the names person’s lifetime) and from the pen of someone stating he was personally acquainted with the one named!

Price was extremely lucky, for further research turned up 24 authors of the time all of whom had, or could be shown by artifice to have, what she was calling “personal evidence” for their being authors .  Now she had a list of 24 Elizabethan/Jacobean authors, for whom she could claim 24 personal evidence existed in contrast with Will, for whom none did!

There was one problem.  That so many authors had personal evidence Will didn’t have was useful to publicize, no doubt, but not what you’d call dramatically compelling.  Ever resourceful, Price came up with another bright tactic: subdividing her personal evidence into ten kinds.  Now she could say that she could name 24 authors of Will’s time for whom personal evidence of authorship existed, there was NONE for Will, although TEN kinds of it existed!

Actually,  there are quite a bit fewer kinds of personal evidence if one divides them honestly.  P also has a difficult time fitting some kinds of evidence into boxes she needs them in.  She needs to draw on her considerable skills at misleading  even to defend some of her alleged evidence as evidence, too.  Demonstrating how ineffectively she carries out all these, and related, activities will be my main focus for the rest of this essay.

To begin with, I propose to shred her ridiculous taxonomy of personal authorship evidence, which I will take to mean testimony of evidence of authorship by someone at the same time providing evidence of being a personal acquaintance of the person he is speaking of.  That’s as close as I can get to what I believe Price’s definition, which she never gives (a tip: propagandists never define their terms since to do so who prevent them from contradicting them when they need to).

My own definition would make more sense.  It is testimony by one person concerning another person we have evidence he was an acquaintance of.  So if Joe says Harry has a dog named Fritz in a letter to Barbara which does not say anything to indicate that Joe actually knows Harry, it would be personal dog-ownership if Joe also wrote, “I visited my friend of twenty years yesterday,” in a letter to to Sam, but not necessarily to Price.  (And we can leave P now since everything I will be discussing now is entirely by Price, and I won’t be saying anything about her honesty or lack thereof–I don’t think.)

Note: we must remember that when Price speaks of “personal records,” she means explicitly personal records. Note also that she does not define these.  Indeed, now that I mention this, I realize that her final masterstroke as a propagandist is just this Either/Or Shakespeare-Elimination Ploy, this pretense that what counts is explicit personal authorship evidence against versus evidence that is not explicit personal evidence.  That way, she can ignore the copious amount of authorship evidence for Shakespeare that may well be personal, such as–well, any of the title-page names since the printer responsible for type-setting it may well have personally known Shakespeare.

A non-propagandist would never split any kind of evidence in two the way Price splits her personal evidence.  He would do as I will do in the final portion of this essay: divide it into many categories on the basis of its strength–in other words, not into just two categories, one for valid, the other for invalid evidence, but into six or more starting with one for “almost certainly valid” down to one for “almost certainly not valid.”  Responsible scholarship.

* * *

 The most important part of Price’s book is her appendix. It contains her “Chart of Literary Paper Trails” followed by documentation. She introduces the chart with the following paragraph:

“Just as birds can be distinguished from turtles by characteristics peculiar to the species, so writers can be distinguished from doctors. actors. or financiers, by the types of personal records left behind. This chart compares personal and literary records left by Elizabethan and Jacobean writers during their lifetimes, with at least one record extant for any category checked. Category 10 includes evidence dating up to twelve months following death, to allow for eulogies or reports of death. Documentation follows.”

Now, then, the strong implication of the text above is that Price will find characteristics distinguishing writers from other professionals. Yet one of her categories is “Evidence of Education.” which does no such thing since an education (a formal education) is a characteristic of many professions, and not a necessary characteristic of the writing profession. Similarly, her category for “Evidence of books owned, written in. borrowed or given,” has to do with a characteristic of many professions–and non-professions, since a housewife could own a book. An illiterate housewife, for that matter. I would grant that having used books is a necessary characteristic of a writer, unlike having had a formal education. In short, Price’s filter only contains eight appropriate categories.

They are described as follows:

(1) “Record of correspondence, especially concerning literary matters”;

(2) Evidence of having been paid to write”;

(3) “Evidence of a direct relationship-to a patron”;

(4) Extant original manuscript”:

(5) Handwritten inscriptions, receipts, letters, etc., touching on literary matters”;

(6) Commendatory verses, epistles, or epigrams contributed or reveived”;

(7) Miscellaneous records (e.g., referred to personally as a writer)”; and

(8) Notice at death as a writer.

This last one, for some reason doesn’t have to be personal as Price defines the term: hence, for her, Joe Blow’s saying, “Tom Hawkings, the writer, is in bed sick” on 11 June. 1606 is not personal evidence that Hawkings was a writer, but Joe Blow’s saying the next day, “Tom Hawkings, the writer, died last night,” is. lt’s a stupid category, anyway, like manv others obviously made up simply to given Price ten categories. Why wouldn’t eulogies go with (6) “Commendatory verses, etc.?” and notice of death with (7), “Miscellaneous records (that refer to the subject’s being a writer. Indeed, it’s a completely superfluous category.   Any responsible scholar would remove it, as I now will.  Price is now down to 7 categories.

(3) “Evidence of a direct relationship to a patron” is another clearly bogus category since is is effectually the same as (2) Evidence of having been paid to write.” as well as a speciman of m”iscellaneous reference to the subject as a writer” of category (7).

And why should there be both (4) Extant original manuscript”and (5) Handwritten inscriptions, receipts, letters, etc., touching on literary matters” since one category for “documents in the subject’s hand showing him to have been a writer” would have been sufficient for an honest scholar?

And certainly (1) “Record of correspondence, especially concerning literary matters” is bogus, as well, since it would include documents that could go into (5) Handwritten inscriptions, receipts, letters, etc., touching on literary matters”; and others that could go into (7) Miscellaneous records (e.g., referred to personally as a writer).”

So, how many legitimate categories would a responsibly revised Pricean filter have? (1) Evidence of having been paid to write”: (2) Handwritten manuscripts. inscriptions, receipts. letters, etc .. touching on literarv matters”: (3) Commendatory verses, epistles, epigrams, or other documents by others mentioning the subject as a writer or to others, mentioning them
as writers (although I’m not sure this last makes one oneself a professional writer).”

****

Here are the Pricean Categories again, as a scholar would have them:

(1) Evidence of having been paid to write”

This combines the categories Price has as (3) and (4).

(2) Handwritten manuscripts, inscriptions, receipts, letters, etc., touching on literary matters”

This combines the categories Price has as (5), (6) and part of (2).

(3) Commendatory verses, epistles, epigrams, or other documents by others mentioning the subject as a writer or to others, mentioning them as writers

This combines the categories Price has as (7), (8), (10) and the part of (2) not included in the category I have as (2). I’ve deleted the categories Price has as (1) and (9) because they have little or nothing to with a person’s career. By Price’s logic. If the records of Shakespeare’s time in the Stratford Grammar School turned up, we would have to accept him as a professional writer, which is ridiculous. Ditto if one book known to have been his did, or was even claimed in a letter to have been in his hands at any time.

Speaking of books, there IS a book extant which is inscribed with his last name. I believe it has “Mr. Shakespeare,” but am not sure. Another thing to check–or can anyone who knows–pass on the information? If it says “Mr. Shakespeare.” then it had to have belonged to either him or his father, it would seem. If it belonged to his father, wouldn’t it also–at least in a manner of speaking–belong to him. since his father spent his last vears. so far as I know, living in his son’s home? Even if not, how cold he not have handled it? Furthermore. how as an actor would he never have had a script in hand. and why shouldn’t a script count as a book? And what about the library his son-in-law had, presumably while Shakespeare was alive. Is it likely Shakespeare never touched one of those books? His close friend Thomas Quiney had a librarv. too. Was it off-limits to Will?

Note: Price claims he was a play-broker. Could he have been a play broker and never had any contact with a book?

If you want to make evidence of contact with books category (4) in my revised list of Pricean categories, fine. There is evidence of it for only 9 of the 25 possible authors on Price’s chart. It would seem that lack of such evidence more indicates a career as an author than evidence of it. Statistically.

Price deals with Marlowe particularly deviously. She counts a letter of Thomas Kyd’s to Lord Keeper Puckering stating that Marlowe wrote for a lord’s plavers which was written after Marlowe died, so shouldn’t be counted in Price’s filter. Price uses this letter in two categories, by the way! And she describes it as being to Puckering in only one, neatly disguising the fact that she was using it twice. (lnadvertantly, I’m sure.)

She also counts a letter from Robert Sidney to Burghley saying that Marlowe professed himself to be a scholar, but a scholar need not be a writer, so is ambiguous and shouldn’t be part of the evidence recorded in Price’s filter.

George Peele wrote a tribute to Marlowe about three weeks after he died that referred to his death and called him “the muses’ darling for thy verse.” But this is not personal testimony. Nowhere in the poem does Peele claim Marlowe as a friend or acquaintance. For some reason, Price waives the need for authors of notices of death to somewhere in their notices indicate they knew the deceased to count as personal.

Conclusion: by Price’s standards, Marlowe left no literary trail.

Here is a list of Price’s 25 possible writers indicating how many of my four de-propaganidized Pricean categories has evidence for each of them.

Jonson all

Nashe all

Massinger all but #4

Harvey all

Spenser all

Daniel all but #4

Peele all but #4

Drayton all but #4

Chapman all

Drummond all but #1

Munday all but #4

Marston all

Lyly all but #2

Heywood all but #4

Lodge all

Greene all but #2

Dekker all but #4

Watson all but #2 and #4

Marlowe none

Beaumont #3 only

Fletcher all but #2

Kyd all but #4

Webster all but #2 and #4

Shakespeare none

I would add that several pieces of evidence Price gives her genuine writers may be questionable but I haven’t time to check each one out. As for the list above. even if we give Marlowe credit for the one item I would but Price shouldn’t because it’s ambiguous (his calling himself a writer by describing himself a Scholar), you just have four categories that two writers are only on two of, and two are on only one of, and Shakespeare not on any according to Price, but on all if we accept the Thomas More fragment as his, which many scholars do; give him credit for earning money from his plays (as he certainly did) rather than having been paid for them) or assume Southampton was his patron as any objective scholar has to; give him ownership of the book with his last name in it; and accept any of the three or four people who during Shakespeare’s life seem to have made personal references to him as a writer such as Meres, Davies, and Buc.

***

It’s time now for a proper list of the authorship evidence for Shakespeare.

(A) Literary Evidence from Shakespeare’s Lifetime That Is Beyond Reasonable Doubt Personal

(B) Literary Evidence from Shakespeare’s Lifetime That Is Almost Certainly Personal

(C) Literary Evidence from Shakespeare’s Lifetime That Is Probably Personal

(D) Literary Evidence from Shakespeare’s Lifetime Slightly More Likely Than Not To Be Personal

(E) Literary Evidence from Shakespeare’s Lifetime Equally Likely to Be Personal or Not Personal

(F) Literary Evidence from Shakespeare’s Lifetime Slightly More Likely Than Not Not To Be Personal

(G) Literary Evidence That Is Probably Not Personal

(H) Literary Evidence from Shakespeare’s Lifetime That Is Almost Certainly Not Personal

(I) Literary Evidence from Shakespeare’s Lifetime That Is Beyond Reasonable Doubt Not Personal

Any fair-minded anti-Stratfordian, and there are a few, will have to admit that such a division is more revealing, if less propagan-distically effective, than the simple black&white personal/impersonal one that Price uses. Not all the evidence is so easily classified of as she pretends.

I also differ from Price in that I use “personal” to mean “testimony by someone who can be shown beyond reasonable doubt to have personally known the person he is testifying about.” Price misuses the term to mean only “testimony by someone who states as he gives it that he personally knows the person he is testifying about.” (I should add that she is not fastidious about sticking to this definition when it suits her agenda not to.) All that concerns her is explicitly personal evidence, a category of just about no value except to propagandists. I also specify that I am concerned with evidence from the lifetime of the alleged writer concerned only instead of fudging things so I can use evidence from after his death when convenient, as she does.

(A) Literary Evidence from Shakespeare’s Lifetime That Is Beyond Reasonable Doubt Personal

I found no evidence for Shakespeare that I feel belongs in this category, for it is for only the most unarguably certain evidence a writer could leave behind, such as signed, holographic manuscripts, or letters in the hand of an alleged writer concerning his writing, with no evidence extant against their identification as his.. I would admit a some of the evidence Diana Price has found for other playwrights of Shakespeare’s time. There is no such evidence for a substantial minority of the 24 writers in Price’s study, and only scraps for almost all the rest, just about none having left behind more than one complete manuscript copy of a play, for instance, and only a few leaving behind so much as one complete manuscript copy of a play.

(B) Literary Evidence That Is Almost Certainly Personal from Shakespeare’s Lifetime

(1) the dedication to Venus and Adonis, 1593

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY,
Earl of Southampton, and Baronof Tichfield

RIGHT HONORABLE, I KNOW not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden only, if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a god-father, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable survey, and your honour to your heart’s content; which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world’s hopeful expectation.

Your honour’s in all duty,
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

(a) Here we have a dedication in which William Shakespeare personally states that he wrote the poem, Venus and Adonis. One can argue that he didn’t really write it, but one can use that argument against any record someone claims is personal literary evidence for some author.  Unless one can provide some evidence against his personally stating his authorship, however, it stands as prima facie evidence that he did so.  Price certainly provided no such evidence, nor has anyone else I know of.

(b) This dedication is also the testimony of its publisher, Richard Field, that William Shakespeare wrote Venus and Adonis. Since it is near-certain that Field personally know William Shakespeare, because : (i) their fathers knew each other, Shakespeare’s father having appraised Richard’s father’s inventory sometime around 1590; (ii) Richard and William were from the same small town of some 1500 to 2000 inhabitant, and close enough in age that they would have gone to the same one-classroom school together; (iii) both had literary interests, even if we assume William was only an actor; and (iv) William had a character in Cymbeline, needing a false name, use the pseudonym Richard du Champ, french for “Richard Field.”

(c) Several other writers left records stating that William Shakespeare wrote Venus and Adonis, and there is no good evidence that he did not write both it and its dedication.

(2) dedication to The Rape of Lucrece

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY,
Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield.

The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with all happiness.

Your lordship’s in all duty,
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

This dedication, published in 1594, is personal literary evidence from his lifetime not only for the same three reasons Shakespeare’s dedication to Venus and Adonis is, but for a subtle fourth reason: it includes implicitly but near-certainly the personal testimony for Shakespeare of a third witness. It states the Shakespeare had a “warrant” from Southampton, which most reasonable people take to have been patronage, won by Venus and Adonis.

That Southampton liked that poem is close to unarguable because Shakespeare had said in his first dedication that he would not compose a second poem if Southampton did not like the first, and here we have a second poem from him. Whatever the “warrant” was, though, Shakespeare got it, and it had to be delivered to him. One would think Southampton himself personally gave it to him, but even if not—as anti-Stratfordians argue—someone had to give that warrant to Shakespeare in person, as a writer. In other words, either Southampton recognized Shakespeare in person as a writer or his go-between did.

(3) Francis Meres’s Testimony

Meres (1598): “As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras: so the sweete wittie soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare, witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugared Sonnets among his private friends, etc.”

How would Meres know about the sonnets among Shakespeare’s private friends without being a private friend himself—or by knowing a private friend who was thus a go-between personally recognizing Shakespeare as a poet the way the deliverer of the warrant in (b) was?

(4) Sir George Buc’s Testimony (which I found out about from Alan Nelson’s website)

The Folger Shakespeare Library copy of George a Greene contains an annotation in the hand of George Buc (1560-1622), who was Master of the Revels from 1610 to 1622.  It  reads as follows:

Written by ………… a minister, who ac[ted] the pin{n}ers part in it himself. Teste W. Shakespea[re]

Ergo, George Buc knew Shakespeare personally, which makes the following Stationers Register entry of Nov. 26, 1607 almost-certainly personal literary evidence from Shakespeare’s lifetime that he was a writer:

“26 Novembris. Nathanial Butter John Busby. Entred for their Copie under thandes of Sir George Buck knight and Thwardens A booke called. Master William Shakespeare his historye of Kinge Lear, as yt was played before the Kinges maiestie at Whitehall vppon Sainct Stephens night at Christmas Last, by his maiesties servantes playinge vsually at the Globe on the Banksyde vjd.”

(5) Thomas Heywood’s Testimony

The following, by Thomas Heywood is from “Epistle to the printer after An Apology for Actors” (1612): “Here likewise, I must necessarily insert a manifest injury done me in that worke, by taking the two Epistles of Paris to Helen, and Helen to Paris, and printing them in a lesse volume, vnder the name of another, which may put the world in opinion I might steale them from him; and hee to doe himselfe right, hath since published them in his owne name: but as I must acknowledge my lines not worthy his patronage, vnder whom he hath publisht them, so the Author I know much offended with M. Jaggard that (altogether vnknowne to him) presumed to make so bold with his name.”

The work Heywood is referring to is Jaggard’s 1612 edition of The Passionate Pilgrim, a collection of poems, the title page of which said it was by William Shakespeare, but which contained poems known or thought to be by others, including the two poems by Heywood that Heywood gives the titles of, which were in Heywood’s Troia Britannica (1609).

Because the anti-Stratfordians have had trouble reading it (Diana Price, for instance, claims on pages 130 and 131 of her book that the passage’s “wording is dense, filled with troublesome pronouns” and therefore can’t count as evidence for Shakespeare), let me repeat it, accompanied by my paraphrase (in caps).

Here likewise, I must necessarily insert a manifest injury done me in

I FEEL I MUST TELL YOU HOW I WAS HARMED IN

that work, by taking the two Epistles of Paris to Helen, and Helen to

THAT VOLUME BY THE INCLUSION IN IT OF TWO OF MY POEMS (WHICH I NAME)

Paris, and printing them in a less volume, under the name of another,

AND PRINTING THEM IN A LESS SIGNIFICANT VOLUME ATTRIBUTED TO SOMEONE ELSE

which may put the world in opinion I might steal them from him; and he

AN ACT WHICH MAY MAKE IT LOOK TO EVERYONE LIKE I STOLE THE POEMS FROM THAT OTHER PERSON AND HE

to do himself right, hath since published them in his own name: but as

TO INDICATE THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER HAS SINCE PRINTED THEM AS HIS, BUT SINCE

I must acknowledge my lines not worthy his patronage, under whom he

I AM COMPELLED TO ADMIT THAT MY POEMS ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO BE GIVEN SOME SORT OF REWARD, BACKED, OR THE LIKE, BY THAT OTHER PERSON, WHOSE NAME JAGGARD

(Note: “patronage” to modern ears, is a bit dense as a figure of speech, and the “he” that refers to Jaggard is sloppily used, but not so sloppily as to prevent any reasonable person from figuring out its referent, or for any other reading of the passage to work)

hath published them, so the Author I know much offended with M.

HAS PUBLISHED THEM UNDER. THE WRITER WHOSE NAME WAS SO USED HAS, I KNOW, BECOME VERY ANNOYED AS A RESULT WITH MR.

Jaggard (that altogether un known to him) presumed to make so bold

JAGGARD (WHO WITHOUT THE WRITER’S KNOWLEDGE) AUDACIOUSLY MADE FREE

with his name. These, and the like dishonesties I know you to be clear

WITH THE NAME OF THAT WRITER. I’M SURE YOU COULD NOT BE GUILTY OF SUCH KINDS OF UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR

of; and I could wish but to be the happy Author of so worthy a work as

AND IT WOULD PLEASE ME IF ONLY I WERE THE FORTUNATE WRITER OF A WORK GOOD ENOUGH TO

I could willingly commit to your care and workmanship.

TURN OVER TO YOU (THE PRINTER THIS TEXT IS ADDRESSED TO).

This passage is as clear as anything written back then (and no anti-Stratfordian at HLAS has shown where it errs). To say it is too ambiguous to count as a personal reference to Shakespeare is ridiculous, if not insane. Heywood in effect names him, for only Shakespeare’s name is on The *Passionate Pilgrim*; he calls him an author, and reveals personal information about him. That he knew him personally is corroborated by a later poem Heywood wrote in which he said that Shakespeare was not haughty, and known to all as just “Will.” Even if you decide Heywood did not personally know Will, he had to have gotten his information about him from someone who did know him personally and that he was upset with Jaggard’s misuse of his name.

(C) Literary Evidence That Is Probably Personal from Shakespeare’s Lifetime

(1) Greene’s Testimony

The author of Greenes Groatsworth of Witte (1592), whether Robert Greene, as I believe, or Henry Chettle, as others do, states that William Shakespeare, the actor, was a playwright (since he is said to conceitedly believe that one of his lines makes him as good a composer of blank verse as Christopher Marlowe and two other playwriting associates of Greene’s). (See my essay on the Groatsworth for details.)

The Groatsworth author not only knows of this actor and that he was writing plays (or parts of plays), but pronounces him conceited, and a jack-of-all trades with some certainty. That strongly suggests to me that he personally knew him.  That would make sense regardless of whether to author were Greene or Chettle since both were entrally involved in the London writing trade.  Greene himself probably knew just about everyone in the theatre business.

But Shakespeare is only identified by his acting vocation, authorship of a line from Henry VI, Part 3 (said to be his in the First Folio and not attributed to anyone else anywhere else), and the nonce term, “Shake-scene,” to refer to Shakespeare, not explicitly. Hence, I put it in this category rather than into B–someone is probably, not almost certainly speaking of Shakespeare as a writer from personal knowledge.

(2) Henry Chettle’s Testimony

I contend that in his preface to Kind-Harts Dreame (1592), Henry Chettle identifies Shakespeare as a playwright he has met in person and found to be a swell guy. He doesn’t give this playwright’s name, but in speaking of him, he is clearly speaking of the Crow of  the Groatsworth (i.e., Shakespeare), for he is apologizing for offensive statements in the Groatsworth that could only have been directed at the Crow, the only one insulted therein who was an actor, or—for that matter—had both an art and a vocation. (See my Chettle essay for the details.)

(3) John Davies’s Testimony

In 1603, John Davies of Hereford writes of his love of actors, including a W.S. (coupled with an R.B.) whom Davies also loved for poetry and who, except for anti-Stratfordians, is almost certainly Shakespeare. Two years later he also refers positively to actors, particularly “R.B. and W.S.,” in a poem. I mention this to indicate the probability that he actually knew W.S. and R.B. personally, because of his fondness for actors in general, and them in particular.

In 1610, a more explicit poem by Davies about Shakespeare was published:

To Our English Terence, Mr Will. Shake-speare

Some say (good Will). which I, in sport, do sing,
Hadst thou not played some Kingly parts in sport,
Thou hadst been a companion for a King;
And been a King among the meaner sort.
Some others rail; but, rail as they think fit,
Thou hast no railing, but, a reigning Wit:
And honesty thou sowst, which they do reap;
So, to increase their stock which they do keep.

To start with, Davies describes Shakespeare as a dramatist, as Terence was. In the body of the poem, he speaks of Shakespeare’s reigning wit, and reveals his knowledge of comments about Shakespeare. This, for me, is suggestion enough that Davies knew Shakespeare, but the fact that the poem is one in a sequence of poems Davies wrote about various of his friends, all of them compli- mentary, though one or two are teasingly mocking, as well, makes it probably, for me, that Davies personally knew Shakespeare.

(4) the impresa

A 1613 record (“Item, 31 Martii 1613 to Mr. Shakespeare in gold about my Lord’s impresa xlivs. To Richard Burbage for painting and making it, in gold xlivs.”) would seem fair evidence of a payment to Will Shakespeare, probably in person, for creating some kind of clever/arty picture/motto combination of just the kind that Shakespeare the writer imaged so often in his plays and that Burbage would have had the talent to paint.  What other Mr. Shakespeare might it have been?

(5) The Testimony of the Title-Pages

Throughout Shakespeare’s lifetime title-pages of published plays attributed those plays to him. They are obviously literary evidence that he wrote them. I consider them probably personal because it doesn’t seem possible to me that none of the many publishers who published his plays and testified that he wrote them by placing his name on their title-pages knew him personally.

Diana Price, in fact, is sure that nearly all of them did—except that they knew him only as a play-broker, not as a playwright. Nonetheless, if they knew him personally, their testimony on the title-pages of the books they published must be considered personal literary evidence.

This must hold, also, for the title-pages of published plays they put his name or initials on that scholars are close to unanimous in considering not to have been Shakespeare’s work: if a publisher personally knew Shakespeare, and publically stated that he was the author of a particular book, then his testimony is personal literary evidence that that was the case (however easily counter-evidence might outweigh it). Interestingly, since no known published play of the times had the name of a non-writer on its title-page, even Shakespeare’s name on the titile-page of a play he did not write is strong evidence that he was a writer.

(D) Literary Evidence Slightly More Likely Than Not To Be Personal from Shakespeare’s Lifetime

(1) The Testimony of John Weever

Here is John Weever’s sonnet on Shakespeare, which appeared in his Epigrammes (1599):

Honey-tongued Shakespeare, when I saw thine issue
I swore Apollo got them, and none other,
Their rosy-tainted features clothed in tissue,
Some heaven-born goddess said to be their mother.
Rose-cheekt Adonis with his amber tresses,
Fair fire-hot Venus charming him to love her,
Chaste Lucretia virgine-like her dresses,
Proud lust-stung Tarquine seeking still to prove her:
Romea-Richard; more, whose names I know not,
Their sugred tongues, and power attractive beauty
Say they are Saints, although that Sts they show not
For thousands vows to them subjective dutie:
They burn in love thy children Shakespear let them
Go, wo thy Muse more Nymphish brood beget them.

According to E.A.J. Honigmann, “Weever made (this poem) a ‘Shakespearian’ sonnet; of around 160 epigrams in his collection, most of them between four and twenty lines in length, one, and only one, is fourteen lines long and rhymes abab, cdcd, efef, gg. This can only mean one thing – that Weaver had seen some of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and wished to signal to others in the know that he had enjoyed this privilege.” That would make him one of the friends Shakespeare circulated his sonnets among. Pure speculation, yes, but possibly correct.

(2) The Testimony of Antony Scoloker

In his preface to “Diaphantus; or, the Passions of Love” (1604), Antony Scoloker writes: “(an epistle to the reader) should be like the Never-too-well read Arcadia, where the Prose and verce (Matters and Words) are like his Mistresses eyes, one still excelling another and without Co-rivall: or to come home to the vulgars Element, like Friendly Shakespeare’s Tragedies, where the Commedian rides, when the Tragedian stands on tip-toe: Faith it should please all, like Prince Hamlet.”

If Scoloker was referring to Shakespeare’s personality, his use of the adjective “friendly” to describe him would indicate that he personally knew him (or that someone else who personally knew him had told Skoloker he was friendly); but since Scoloker here could be referring to Shakespeare’s “friendly” style as a writer, I don’t feel I can assume that he knew Shakespeare the man. (There are two conflicting questions for me: why insert an adjective about a man’s disposition in a paragraph otherwise entirely about writing; and why use the adjective in front of Shakespeare’s name rather than in front of “tragedies” if it is supposed to describe the latter?)

(3) The Testimony of John Webster

John Webster, 1612 (“To the reader” prefacing The White Devil):

“Detraction is the sworn friend to ignorance; for mine own part I have ever truly cheris’d my good opinion of other men’s worthy labors: especially of that full and height’ned style of Master Chapman; the labor’d and understanding works of Master Jonson; the no less worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Master Beaumont and Master Fletcher; and lastly, without wrong last to be named, the right happy and copious industry of M. Shakespeare, M. Dekker, and M. Heywood; wishing that what I write may be read by their light; protesting that, in the strength of mine own judgment, I know them so worthy that, though I rest silent in my own work, yet to most of theirs I dare, without flattery, fix that of Martial: non norunt, haec monumenta mori [these monuments know not how to die].”

On the surface, Webster’s praise is impersonal–the kind that is appropriate when “there was no personal relationship,” as Price’s husband put it in an HLAS discussion. Webster praises everyone’s “worthy labors”; the “style” of Chapman; the “works” of Jonson; the “composures” of Beaumont and Fletcher; the “industry” of the last three. I mention it here, however, because of its reference to Webster’s “beloved friend” Heywood, without a single adjective to indicate he was a friend of Webster’s.

But in 1612  John Webster a verse something “To his beloved friend Maister Thomas Heyood” for the latter’s “Apology for Actors.”  So, by including Shakespeare in the company of a certain friend of his, Webster may, ever so slightly, be indicating that Shakespeare, too, was his friend.

(Let me insert here that Price counts Webster’s verse as “Contemporaneous Personal Literary Evidence” for both Heywood and himself. On its face it suppports the claim that Webster knew Heywood and thought Heywood was the author of “Apology for Actors.” But how does it persuade us that Webster was himself an author? If Shakespeare’s dedications to V&A and RoL don’t count, Webster’s name at the bottom of a printed verse is no evidence of his authorship. There is no indication that Webster’s rough draft manuscript for the verse survives, nor does Heywood’s bio show any reciprocal record of esteem for Webster. This is not the only case where a commendatory verse gets counted twice in the CPLE data. I have to say it sounds like stuffing the ballot box.)

(4) The Testimony of Leonard Digges

In 1613 Leonard Digges compared the sonnets of Lope de Vega to those of “our Will Shakespeare,” which is a pretty friendly way to refer to Shakespeare—and Digges was not only a close neighbor of Shakespeare’s in both Aldermarston and in London, his father-in-law was remembered by Shakespeare in his will, and served as one of the two overseers of that will. But Digges could have meant “England’s” by “our.” I’m also not sure that “Will” wasn’t the name everyone knew Shakespeare by, not just his friends. Given a choice between calling this piece of evidence personal or impersonal, I’d call it personal. Fortunately, with a sane way of arranging such items in a continuum, I don’t have to do that here.

(E) Literary Evidence Equally Likely to Be Personal or Not Personal from Shakespeare’s Lifetime

This category would include just about all the literary evidence from Shakespeare’s lifetime that is not explicitly personal nor consigned to the preceding categories. I don’t believe there is any known piece of evidence for Shakespeare that can confidently be described as certainly or even probably impersonal. Edward Alleyn, for instance, referred to Shakespeare as a poet; was the reference personal? I, for one, would suspect it probably was since it seems unlikely two such important figures in the London theatre world of the time would not have met, but we lack sufficient data to say one way or the other. The same seems true for all the other evidence for Shakespeare. So this category is the last on my nine that I will concern myself with here. And I won’t bother to list the pieces of evidence that would go into it, for I have covered most of them in the main body of my book, Shakespeare and the Rigidniks.

I will just say that it is ridiculously misleading for Price to give no credence at all to this kind of evidence merely because it is not known to be personal since it is also not known not to be personal.  She simply claims, entirely fraudulently, that there are two kinds of evidence, personal and impersonal.  But there are three kinds, a small amount known to be personal, a large amount neither known to be personal or known not to be personal, and a little known not to be personal.  When forced to admit this, she–unsurprisingly–calls the middle kind “ambiguous evidence.”  I’d call it evidence of unknown personalness.

Price’s book is preposterously propagandistic in many other ways I hope someday to trace in order to provide a sort of compendium of propagandistic practices.  The way she makes four or five different sorts of evidence into ten so as to make it seem many more kinds of evidence are lacking for Shakespeare than actually are seems to me the best piece of scholarly dishonesty yet invented by an anti-Stratfordian, better even than Looney’s preposterous lists of characteristics Shakespeare doesn’t have, according to him, and Oxford does have, according to him, that make the latter 100% capable of having written the works attributed to Shakespeare, and Shakespeare, despite actual evidence, 100% incapable of having written them. One can only shake one’s head in wonder at such genius wasted on nothing more than libeling a great poet–for it wasn’t enough to enable her to find a replacement for him.