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Subject: Equal Time For Marlowe

Posted by: daver852
Date: Jun 13 12

I will confine my postings to a topic near and dear to my heart, i.e., that the works now attributed to William Shakespeare were actually written by Christopher Marlowe. My intent is to enlighten and inform, and not to disparage anyone holding a contrary opinion. Rabid Stratfordians are invited to shower me with abuse, and I will gladly answer any questions to the best of my ability.

2347 replies. 1 2 3 4 5 118

daver852

Congratulations. By the time you finish reading this, you will know as much about the first 29 years of the life of William Shakespeare, Gent., as anyone on earth. Here is what we know:

April 26, 1564: William Shakespeare, third child of John and Mary Shakespeare, and the eldest to survive to adulthood, is christened at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwickshire.

November 27, 1582: A marriage license issued by the Bishop of Worcester for "Wm Shaxpere et Annam Whately de Temple Grafton."

November 28, 1582: A marriage bond of forty pounds is posted, and the Bishop of Worcester authorizes the marriage of "William Shagspere on the one party and Anne Hathwey."

May 26, 1583: Susanna, daughter of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, is christened at Holy Trinity Church.

Reply #1. Jun 13 12, 9:51 AM

daver852

1587 - 1589: Shakespeare's name appears as his mother's heir in a lawsuit filed against her brother-in-law, John Lambert.

And there you have it. Everything we know for certain about nearly 60% of the life of one of the most famous people who ever lived. When you consider that for 300 years, literally tens of thousands of highly educated people have devoted their lives to pouring over piles of musty documents, letters, or anything else they could get their hands on, searching for any scrap of information, no matter how small, about this man, this is extraordinary.
There is so little information about him that people feel compelled to invent facts that don't exist. Here are some things you probably know about Shakespeare that are not true.

1. He was born on April 23, 1564. Actually, he might have been born on April 23, 1564. We don't know. Births were not recorded in Shakespeare's time, only baptisms. Children were usually chrsitened on the first Sunday or feast day following their date of birth. If Shakespeare had been born on April 23, he should have been christened on April 25, the Feast of St. Mark. But this was considered an unlucky day, so the event may have been postponed. Actually, he could have been born on any day between April 21 to April 25.

Furthermore, these dates are "Old Style." England was still using the Julian calendar; it did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752. So using our calendar, Shakespeare was probably born May 2 or 3.

http://madshakespeare.com/2010/04/when-is-shakespeares-birthday/

2. Shakespeare may have been engaged to someone else before he married Anne Hathaway.

Nonsense. Anyone who believes this has absolutely no knowledge of Elizabethan law and customs, and has not looked at the documentary evidence. This myth arose because in the marriage license, her name is spelled "Anne Whateley," while in the marriage bond, it is spelled "Anne Hathwey." If you are wondering how such this could have happened, there's a simple explanation: the Bishop of Worcester's clerk was an idiot. Researchers have shown the same man wrote "Baker" for "Barber," "Darby" for "Bradely," and many other errors of this sort. Since both a license and a marriage bond were needed, and no other license is recorded, "Anne Whateley" and "Anne Hathwey" have to be the same person. The clerk was doubtlessly the ancestor of many millions of present day civil servants.

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/shakespearemarriage.html

3. Shakespeare's wife was eight years older than he was. Maybe, maybe not. There's no record of Anne Hathaway's birth. Her monument in Holy Trinity Church tells us that she died on August 6, 1623, at the age of 67. Depending on her date of birth, she could have been born in either 1555 or 1556. So she could have been only seven years older at the time of their marriage. We just don't know.

4. Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same day. Not true at all. Spain had adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1582. So while William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes both died on the same date (April 23, 1616), they did NOT die on the same day. Cervantes died ten days before Shakespeare did.

So there endeth my first installment. My next will examine the "excellent education" that young Master William Shakespeare received at the Stratford Grammar School.
Reply

Reply #2. Jun 13 12, 9:53 AM

daver852

My computer is evidently experiencing technical difficulties, or is haunted by the ghost of the Bishop of Worcester's clerk. To the facts listed, add:

February 2, 1585: Twin children, Hamnet and Judith, son and daughter of William and Anne Shakespeare, are christened in Ho;y Trinity Church.

Reply #3. Jun 13 12, 9:58 AM

lesley153

This is good. You are clearly a gentleman and a scholar, sir.

Oh and third time lucky. :)

Reply #4. Jun 13 12, 12:09 PM

trojan11

I will not argue with Daver's reasoning, as it is really not possible to know, merely to surmise, and this does make for a splendid debate.
However, I still take issue with Daver's contention, made some while ago now, that Stratford upon Avon was nothing more (not verbatim) than an irrelevant mud hovel.

Reply #5. Jun 13 12, 1:44 PM

lesley153

Does it depend how you define hovel?

Reply #6. Jun 13 12, 5:49 PM

daver852

Shakespeare's Education.

Whoever wrote wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare was not only a genius, but a well-educated genius, speaking several languages, and schooled in history, geography, religion, and a host of other subjects. Marlowe took his MA from Cambridge, and appears to have been an exceptional student, writing a play and translating Ovid's "Elegies" while still an undergraduate.

Now there were a lot of Elizabethan writers who did not attend university, but we have evidence of a good education for most of them; Thomas Kyd, for example attended the Merchant Taylor's School in London, and Ben Jonson was an alumnus of the Westminster School. So how about William Shakespeare - what sort of education did he have?

If you read any standard biography of Shakespeare, you will read that he attended the King Edward VI School (often called the Stratford Grammar School). But did he? And, if he did, what would he have learned there?

First of all, it must be understood that a "grammar" school in his time was not the same as a grammar school today; it was more like a high school, or even a junior college. Students would have attended from about the ages of 7 to 14. They would have learned a little history, some mathematics, received religious instruction, etc., but, most importantly, they would have learned Latin. It would have been drilled into them. They were even required to converse in Latin. It was the "lingua franca" of its day, and mastering it was a prerequisite for any kind of career in government, education, and so on. All educated people were fluent in Latin. Here's a link that explains a little about Elizabethan education:

http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-education.htm

There was some sort of "free school" in Stratford since the 13th century. The grammar school Shakespeare might have attended was closed during what was called "the Dissolution of the Monasteries" under King Henry VIII, since it was a Catholic institution. The people of Stratford petitioned to have it reopened, and it was refounded in 1553 as the King Edward VI School. So there was a grammar school in Stratford, but did Shakespeare attend it?

There are no attendance records from Shakespeare's time. So we just don't know. The argument in favor of his attendance, which is repeated in nearly every article about the man, is that he certainly would have attended, because his father, John, was an Alderman of Stratford, and his son could have attended the school without having to pay tuition. A freebie! At face value, this seems pretty persuasive. But there are a few problems.

First of all, I've spent many hours researching the King Edward VI school, and I can't find evidence that ANYONE had to pay tuition to attend. It was endowed by revenues from lands seized from the Catholic Church, and the income was sufficent to allow its headmaster to be paid the princely salary of 20 pounds per annum, twice that of some similar schools. If anyone can tell me what the tuition was, and cite a reference, I'd like to know.

Then there are a few other problems. Before a student could be admitted, he had to already be able to read, write, and speak some Latin. But both of Shakespeare's parents were illiterate; Shakespeare's daughters were both illiterate. His wife was illiterate. In fact, nearly everyone in William Shakespeare's extended family, with the possible exception of his younger brother, Gilbert, seems to have been unable to read and write. So where did Shakespeare get the preliminary education that would have allowed him to matriculate at the Stratford Grammar School?

To be continued

Reply #7. Jun 14 12, 8:49 AM

daver852

Shakespeare's Education (Part II)

No problem, say the Stratfordians; Shakespeare would have first attended a "petty school," where he would have acquired the necessary knowledge. Petty schools were established in most places for this very purpose. They were usually not civic institutions, but more like tutoring sessions in private homes. But, again, a problem arises. There is no record of a petty school in Stratford around 1570, when young William would have gone there. The first mention of one is in 1604, when it is noted that it had been in existence "for some time." But there's no mention of one in Shakespeare's time, and no records survive naming any resident of Stratford as the proprietor of a "petty school."

Now, I think there are some arguments that mitigate against his attendance. His family's illiteracy, and the lack of a petty school have been mentioned, but there's another that is seldom brought up. Shakespeare's father, John, was a glover, or glovemaker, by trade. There's no record of him hiring an apprentice to assist him in his business. I think young Willie was far more likely to have been scraping hides in his father's shop during his boyhood years than mastering Latin grammar. And then there's Ben Jonson's famous line: "He had little Latin, and less Greek." Well, if Shakespeare had attended the Edward VI School, he might not have learned much Greek, but he would certainly have been fluent in Latin; it would have been beaten into him for seven years - literally.

One final observation. When William Shakespeare died in 1616, he left a very detailed will, and left a number of bequests, including ten pounds to Stratford's poor. But he left nothing to the Stratford Grammar School, although many of his fellow townspeople did. Doesn't this seem strange? He was a wealthy man, and could have afforded to do so, but he didn't. Wouldn't one expect some acknowledgment of the institution that provided him the means to rise in the world, prosper and become a "gentleman?"

To summarize:

No record of school attendance.

Arguments in favor of attendance:

1. Free tuition may have been an incentive to attend.

Arguments against:

1. Illiterate parents, wife and children. No interest in learning demonstrated by any family member.

2. No evidence of a petty school in Stratford.

3. No evidence his father hired an apprentice; may have been needed at home to work in the family business.

4. No bequest to the local school in his will.

You make the call.

To be continued

Reply #8. Jun 14 12, 9:14 AM

daver852

Shakespeare's education (Part III)

For the sake of argument, let's assume that Shakespeare DID attend the Stratford Grammar School. Would that have been enough formal education to allow him to write the works attributed to him? I don't think so.

At grammar school, Shakespeare would have learned a lot of Latin and some Greek. He would have been well acquainted with the Classical writings of ancient Greece and Rome. He would know a little geography, history and mathematics. Where did he learn everything else? French, Italian, Spanish? Detailed information about the customs of foreign countries, law and government?

Well, say the Stratfordians, he was a genius, so he taught himself. Look at Ben Jonson - he didn't attend university, and he became a very learned man. True, but Jonson's works don't display the amount of learning that Shakespeare's do. He mostly wrote comedies. Furthermore, Jonson was a Londoner, and had much better access to books than Shakespeare would have had in Stratford. Let's look at the problems Shakespeare would have had continuing his education in his home town.

So as not to infuriate the resident Stratfordians, I will not repeat an earlier assertion that Stratford was the Elizabethan equivalent of Pig's Knuckle, Arkansas. But it certainly wasn't Florence, or even London. Taken in the best possible light, it was a fairly insignificant little town of about 1000, off the main roads to anywhere; in the very year of Shakespeare's birth, 1564, an epidemic of the plague had killed off half its population. It did have a weekly market, and seems to have been most noted for its fine stone bridge that spanned the River Avon.

It's probably not true that there were no books in Stratford, but there couldn't have been many. Contemporary legal records show the literacy rate in Stratford to have been around 10%, much lower than the rest of the country. The love of learning did not prosper there. Furthermore, in the 16th century, books were extremely valuable possessions. A book might cost one or two pounds, a huge sum, the equivalent to more than a month's wages. A man who owned 20 books was considered to have an extensive library. And if you did own some books, you weren't about to loan them to some young whippersnapper who just happened to have a hankerin' for learning. And the books that were available in a place like Stratford were unlikely to have enabled young William learn to speak French or Italian; they were likely to have been religious tracts, or books on technical subjects. Nor is there any evidence that Shakespeare EVER owned any books himself. In the 1780s, a Warwickshire clergyman, James Wilmot, did an extensive search for them. "With the dust of every private bookcase within a radius of 50 miles of Stratford, and finding no books that had been owned by the playwright or other physical evidence, Wilmot burned his notes for fear of their implications." The Stratfordian response? The Wilmot story is a lie, and the reports of lectures he gave are forgeries, because they contain facts about Shakespeare that were not known at the time of their publication. It's hard to argue against logic like that

Now, I have a lot of sympathy with the "genius" argument. Like Shakespeare, I come from a humble, rural background, and my family, while not illiterate, certainly weren't Nobel Prize material (although, thinking about this, if Gore got one, maybe they were). During my eight years in the Navy, I earned degrees through SUNY's External Degree Program in English Literature, Economics, Sociology and History, all through self-study. So maybe Shakespeare and I have a lot in common. But I had a lot of spare time to kill while standing switchboard watches 12 hours a day for months at a time, while Shakespeare would have been busy doing some kind of work to support his rapidly growing family. And I already had three years of college under my belt before I enlisted. And while I did learn to speak Italian, it was because I spent months in Italy; to my credit, I never learned to speak French. And I didn't write Hamlet.

I think it almost impossible for people in our day and age find it almost impossible to conceive how difficult it would have been for someone studying on their own to acquire the kind information Shakespeare would have needed to write his plays and sonnets. There are references taken from hundreds of books. Marlowe would have had access to Cambridge University's libraries, and the private libraries of the teachers there. He would have associated with intelligent, learned people who could have taught him anything he wanted to know. Marlowe's circumstances would have allowed a genius to flower, Shakespeare's would not.

Next: The Upstart Crow

Reply #9. Jun 14 12, 10:13 AM

daver852

The Upstart Crow

1585 to 1592 are called Shakespeare's "Lost Years." Despite hundreds of years and millions of man-hours of research, the only mention of him during this time is a reference to him as his mother's heir in a lawsuit. So what was our delicate genius doing during this time period? Nobody knows, but that hasn't stopped Stratfordians from inventing a number of possible careers for him: a "country school teacher," a law clerk, "Serjeant Shakespeare" battling the foe in Ireland or the Low Countries, sailor, and many others. Personally, I believe he was probably at home in Stratford, butchering sheep, scraping hides, and helping his father make gloves.

Then, in 1592, a posthumously published pamphlet by a man named Robert Greene showed that he was already established as a playwright in London, and was so successful that he was already causing jealousy among other authors. In a pamphlet usually refered to as "A Groatsworth of Wit," Greene wrote:

"There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Iohannes fac totem, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a countrey."

We've got our proof! Greene not only paraphrases a line from Henry VI, part 3 (which everybody knows Shakespeare wrote!) "O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide!," he also uses the word "Shake-scene" He has to be talking about Shakespeare!

Except he isn't, it can be easily shown that he isn't, and not only that, it actually serves to disprove that Shakespeare wrote "Henry VI," or anything else for that matter. But Stratfordians continue to repeat this lie (and I think even most of them know it's lie) because it is all they have.

Stay tuned for the next installment. You'll never look at the "upstart crow" in the same way again.

Reply #10. Jun 17 12, 8:24 AM

_Morpheus_

I don't Christopher Marlowe authored Shakespeare's plays anymore than I believe he could fly. But It'll be interesting listening to why you do. Although, it is difficult to comprehend how such literary genius could evolve outside the formal education system, it is not without precedence. Looking forward to Much Ado about Something ;-)

"Good friend for Jesus’ sake forbear,
To dig the dust enclosed here:
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones."

Reply #11. Jun 17 12, 2:33 PM

daver852

The Upstart Crow (Part II)

Robert Greene was an interesting man. He was born July 11, 1558 in Norwich, and died September 3, 1992 in London. He was a self-confessed scoundrel and low-life, and often wrote about the lower classes: confidence men, thieves, prostitutes, etc. These works were known as "Coney-catching" pamphlets. He appears to have been one of the first people to attempt to support himself solely through writing.

That wasn't an easy thing to do in Elizabethan England. You just about had to live in London; then, as now, life was very expensive there. And writers were poorly paid; you might get a pound or two for a poem or pamphlet, maybe five or six pounds for a play. And the writer had no interest in his work; once a play was sold, it belonged - lock, stock and barrel - to the purchaser. There were no such things as royalties; if your play was a smash hit, as some of Greene's were, the author did not profit from it all. The actors or theatre company got the profits, and the writer received nothing, except what he had been initially paid. This point is vital to understanding the "upstart crow."

Considering his somewhat degenerate lifestyle - he was fond of drinking, wenching and other pleasant pursuits - Greene was nearly always broke and in debt. His literary output was phenomenal, much of it published anonymously, but he still had trouble keeping the wolf from the door. He would, could and did write just about anything: poems, plays and pamphlets. But he could not keep up with his bills. He would resort to taking loans from and advances from impressarios in return for work to be delivered later. You can see where this is heading.

Greene died, penniless, in the house of a friend, deserted by most of his friends, and the theatre owners he had helped to become rich men. After his death, a printer, Henry Chettle, published a pamphlet called "Greene's Groats-worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance," which he claimed to have been written by Greene on his death bed. It is in this pamphlet that the famous passage about the "upstart crow" appeared. In 1766 a man named Thomas Tyrwhitt first suggested that the "upstart crow" was William Shakespeare, and this nonsense has been being repeated ever since, often by people who should know better.

The only way one could believe that the "upstart crow" refered to Shakespeare is if he had not read the work in question. If you want to read it, here's a link with modern English spelling:

http://www.exclassics.com/groat/groat.htm

But I'll save you the trouble with a brief synopsis. A miserly old userer named Gorinius is dying. He has two sons, Roberto (a not too subtle reference to Greene himself), a scholar, and a younger son, Lucanio. He despises Roberto for being a scholar, and leaves his entire fortune to Lucanio, and gives Roberto only a single groat (a small silver coin worth fourpence), and tells him to go and buy himself "some wit" with it. Roberto is none too pleased with this, so he arranges for his brother to be smitten by a gold-digging courtesan named Lamilia. Lamilia gets her hooks into Lucanio and gets her hands on all his wealth. When Roberto asks for a cut for putting his brother into her hands, she tells him to take a hike.

Roberto is then approached by a rich "player," who promises him a good living and an easy life if he will write plays for him. Poor Roberto eventually becomes besotted with vice, and like Greene himself, is dying of "dropsy" from his addiction to drink.

To end the pamphlet, Greene addresses three young men (usually identified as Christopher Marlowe, THomas Nashe and George Peele), and warns them not to follow in his footsteps as a playwright. And that's where the "upstart crow" comes in.

Reply #12. Jun 17 12, 3:23 PM

daver852

The Upstart Crow (Part III)

As noted earlier, it's easy to misidentify Shakespeare as the "upstart crow" if one has never read "A Groatsworth of Wit" and is only familiar with the out of context quotation that Stratfordians love to quote. But here is what Greene really wrote:

"Base minded men all three of you, if by my misery ye be not warned: for unto none of you (like me) sought those burrs to cleave: those Puppets (I mean) that speak from our mouths, those Antics garnished in our colours. Is it not strange that I, to whom they all have been beholding: is it not like that you, to whom they all have been beholding, shall (were ye in that case that I am now) be both at once of them forsaken? Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. O that I might entreat your rare wits to be employed in more profitable courses: & let those Apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions. I know the best husband of you all will never prove an Usurer, and the kindest of them all will never seek you a kind nurse: yet whilst you may, seek you better Masters; for it is pity men of such rare wits, should be subject to the pleasure of such rude grooms."

Greene is not expressing jealousy of a fellow playwright. He's not accusing anyone of plagiarism. He's warning Marlowe, Nash and Peele not to waste their time writing plays, because the actors (puppets) will grow rich off their efforts and then abandon them to die penniless, just as they have done him. The actor he's talking about isn't Shakespeare, either. It's the greatest actor of the English stage at the time, Edward Alleyn, who grew so rich he was able to found an entire college from the proceeds of his will. Greene had asked Alleyn for help when he was dying, and had been refused, even though he had written many of the plays that had made Alleyn rich and famous. No wonder he was bitter.

Now if there are any doubts at all that Alleyn, the actor (or Shake-scene) is the person being written about here, they can be laid to rest when one realizes that two years earlier, Greene had attacked Alleyn using very similiar language:

"Why Roscius, art thou proud with Aesop's crow, being pranct with the glory of other's feathers? Of thyself thou canst say nothing, and if the Cobbler hath taught thee to say Ave Caesar, disdain not thy tutor because thou Pratest in a King's Chamber." (Robert Greene, Francesco's Fortunes, 1590)

Here's a link to a very good article on this subject by the writer Daryl Pinksen that explains this better than I can:

http://www.marlowe-society.org/pubs/journal/downloads/rj06articles/jl06_03_pinksen_upstartcrowalleyn.pdf

Just one more at this subject, and then I'll let it be.

Reply #13. Jun 17 12, 3:47 PM

daver852

The Upstart Crow (Part IV)

I mentioned earlier that all this "upstart crow" nonsense would actually show that Shakespeare was not a writer. Well, perhaps that was a bit extreme. But it does show that he didn't write at least one play often attributed to him, and that throws a bunch of others into doubt as well.

"Edward III" is a play printed anonymously in 1596. It was written sometime between 1589 and 1594. There are references to the Spanish Armada, so it can't predate 1588. Many Stratfordians consider it to be a play of Shakespeare's, or a collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Kyd. Nonsense. It was written by Christopher Marlowe.

Remember the second Robert Greene quote I cited in the previous section? Here it is again:

"Why Roscius, art thou proud with Esops Crow, being pract with the glorie of others feathers? Of thy selfe thou canst say nothing, and if the Cobler hath taught thee to say Ave Caesar, disdain not thy tutor because thou pratest in a king's Chamber."

There's no doubt that Greene is talking about Edward Alleyn; "Roscius" was Alleyn's nickname, a reference to a great actor of ancient Rome. Dr. A. D. Wraight, in her book "Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyn," notes that there is one, and only one play, in which a character speaks the line "Ave Caesar" in a chamber, and that play is "Edward III."

Prince; As cheerful sounding to my youthful spleen
This tumult is, of war’s increasing broils,
As, at the coronation of a king,
The joyful clamours of the people are,
When ‘Ave Caesar!’ they pronounce aloud
Edward the Third Act I, Scene 1. 11.160-4

And there was only one noted playwright who was the son of a cobbler, or shoemaker, and that was Christopher Marlowe. Greene knew who had written what. This is as close to positive attribution of authorship as one can get.

Edward III, the Henry VI trilogy, and Richard III are all parts of a five-part series of plays; if Marlowe wrote the first one, there's a pretty darned good chance he wrote the others as well. There's a lot of other evidence that he wrote the three parts of Henry VI, but I'm not going to go into that now. If you'd like a sample of Dr. Wraight's brilliant research, see this:

http://themarlowestudies.org/wraight-EdwardIII.html

So, there you have it. Anyone still want to make a case for Shakespeare being the "upstart crow?"

Reply #14. Jun 17 12, 4:18 PM

tobyone

Dr. Waight's research is simply splendid. The most compelling argument for "de-crowing" Shakespeare I've read.

Daver, thanks for this fascinating serial post, I'm looking forward to reading the Marlowe "proofs".

Reply #15. Jun 17 12, 5:06 PM

daver852

Got a few more topics on Willie to cover first, but never fear, I'll get there!

Reply #16. Jun 17 12, 6:53 PM

Creedy

So what, Daver.

The works are written and acknowledged for their brilliance. The words remain.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
So 'Shakespeare' would, were he not 'Shakespeare' called
Retain that dear perfection"

Reply #17. Jun 18 12, 2:07 AM

daver852

That is absolutely not true. The sonnet sequences, for example, read entirely differently if viewed as the real experiences of an exiled Marlowe than they do if they are regarded as a mere "intellectual exercise." And it is important for a man to receive credit for his work, even if he has been dead for 400 years.

Reply #18. Jun 18 12, 6:04 AM

Creedy

Important to whom?

Somehow I don't think it'd rattle their bones one way or another.

Surely when people discuss the Sonnets or perform "King Lear", or listen to the exquisite arias from "The Marriage of Figaro", or admire "Woman With A Parasol" they're not thinking about Shakespeare or Mozart or Monet - they're swept away instead with the gifts that are left behind, the faint scent of perfume on the air, the haunting melody that lingers in the heart.

I dont at any rate. It's the blooms I cherish, not the gardener.

But back to your argument, why is it difficult to believe that even the most humble of educations couldn't produce a brilliant mind? Education merely adds tinsel to the gifts we are endowed with from the moment of conception. We are all capable, given the right circumstances, of producing greatness.

A good education doesn't necessarily produce a creative mind, but rather the reverse. It tends to nurture conformity to the values of the ruling government or class that has put that education system in place.

I look forward to reading the rest of your comments with great interest.

Reply #19. Jun 18 12, 10:38 AM

lesley153

If someone other than Shakespeare wrote the works we now regard as his, why didn't the other person claim the credit at the time?

Reply #20. Jun 18 12, 2:08 PM

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