45:00 Thanks so much for the shout out Clare!!!! Loved this video! Nashe has to be at the heart of so much of this stuff. And this is definitely a moment where I cannot throw Sidney's name in the hat to help solve it--at least not directly. I need to dive deeper into DeVere biography and re-tread his writings soon. This is super timely as always--like I said, you have an absolute knack for that. But David Richardson has been reaching out to Brady and I about getting together with you and Daniel Cowan and Marianna and maybe a few others to do a thorough study of Nashe and Harvey with all our various perspectives. I think he's suggesting we do some sort of filing sharing type thing where we can all simultaneously read through them over several weeks or months and leave our notes for everyone else to read. We may not come to anything like a consensus, but seeing stuff in real time from another perspective might be the grease we need to get the wagon wheels turning. Brady was thinking maybe we could do all that via a Discord server. I will keep you updated on this potential endeavour. I need to check back in with David here soon. Thanks again for the video Clare and especially the shout out at the end which was incredibly thoughtfully worded.

8:53 I'm reminded of Samuel and William Rowley who seem to have pretty suspect Bios as well.

Thanks for another amazing video on the authorship issue. I love that you began with your sources and explaining that you used critical thinking skills. Sadly critical thinking is no longer taught in schools in much of Canada and the US. Students are expected to believe anything they are told no matter what the sources are. That explains why so many Millennials and their kids and grandkids believe so much nonsense about things like vaccines, progressive conspiracies, and will vote against their own best interests. But I digress. I like that you described what type of evidence you used. Too often authorship videos and papers will accept whatever mainstream scholars have written without question. I have learned that you must question everything about the Stratford myth since so much evidence those scholars use does nothing to prove their case and is irrelevant. You definitely put the story in its proper context and your attention to detail is always needed in the discussion. Keep up the great work. We need more scholars like you to set the record straight about Elizabethan and early Jacobean times which have erroneously been dubbed "merry old England". Those times were hardly merry. Thanks for referencing Diana Price's book Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography. The more her findings are spread, the less likely it is that people will still believe the Stratford narrative in the future. Her research is compelling and demands an answer from mainstream scholars, who have seemingly ignored it long after it was published in the early 2000s. I just noticed that the clouds in the upper-left of the Nashe woodcut (5:03) resemble the backside of someone "passing wind" shown from the waist down, complete with a cartoon-like cloud of gas. The image is completed by a tiny right leg pointing to the right. It may be how I perceive it, but with a little examination you can see how different those clouds are from the clouds on the right. I believe that it was meant to depict something comical since we have the more ordinary clouds on the right to compare them to. If they were meant to be seen as that, then it is evidence that Nashe didn't exist as a real person but was either an allonym or pseudonym. In other words, the writer was an inside joke.

Thank you Clare for your excellent video, well voiced and very nicely enhanced with pertinent graphics.

sicttasd.tripod.com/letter.html A letter from George Carey to his wife sicttasd.tripod.com/wclet.html letter to William Cotton www.jstor.org/stable/511482?seq=3 Thomas Nash and William Cotton lostplays.folger.edu/Terminus_et_Non_Terminus Https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Eagle/Eagle%20Volumes/1950s/1950/Eagle_1950_Lent.pdf Nashe's verses from Ecclesiasticus

Hey Clare, just wanted to swing by and say you officially stumped me. The only anadiploses I can find with that complete a structure are EO's poem, PS's A&S 1 and WS. I'm sure there are more out there, but just trying to scan and/or search for them is yielding no results. I'm just gonna have to keep it in back of my mind while I read and maybe down the road another will pop up. I wish there was some kind of rhetorical database for this kind of thing. Easy enough to search for words on EEBO, but rhetorical devices don't seem to have some easy access. I will say while I was looking, I re-read through Drayton's Idea Sonnets and I guess I need to start keying in Drayton more. That was sort of big push for Stotsenberg and we talk about it in our Bob Prechter video, but I've been letting it kind of slide because no one else seems to be interested. But that's clearly a mistake on my part because Drayton seems to be a WS writer. Idea has a ton of WS language, images and metaphors, most notably from Macbeth: "Why should nature niggardly restrain" (XXV) "Call back the stiff-necked rebels from exile, and mollify the slaughtering gallowglass" (ibid) "Was held in scorn...though of a goddess born" (XXII) "He is as young as when he was first born...laugh us to scorn." (XXI) "And idiots are still running after boys" (ibid)

Shakespeare in Context is excellently researched and dense with historical information. It's a pleasure to enjoy these, but you must pay close attention to really follow the copious details. I've had to watch this video many times before I could move on to the 2nd part. The content creator should revisit the audio editing on each of these or just record new scripts. They're too good to have muddled editing with potentially lost text.

24:00 Just gotta pop in to leave my obligatory "Don't Forget Sidney!" facts: Sidney seems to have spent an exorbitant amount of my money, time and energy procuring books during his continental tour. Sidney also visited Venice, that seems to have been his favorite Italian destination. Of all courtiers (or just people in general) of the era, Sidney by far has the deepest connection with John Dee. If we are invoking Dee, we should be bringing up Sidney in consideration. Dee himself stated rather unequivocally that Sidney was his best and brightest pupil in pretty much all subject matters. As you and Patrick have pointed out, Sidney also seems to reference Tempest in DoP. Also unrelated to Sidney, I want to suggest a late 80s or early 90s iteration of the play (though not as the original version, and probably not final version either) 1) Structured like a Lyly play 2) Ferdinand as main character suggest Lord Strange 3) The word "strange" seems to appear in higher percentage in plays known to have been by Strange's Men, an argument used to prove Stratford as Hand D circa 93 over John Webster as Hand D circa 1600, YET the word strange appears in Tempest more than any Folio play. 4) I've wondered if Prospero throwing down his staff/book might be read as Lyly retiring circa early 90's.

20:34 interesting that a Harvard psychologist Lisa Knight is trying two spot Shakespeare by diagnosing and documenting his mental and emotional state this indeed has led her not to Edward devere but to Phillip Sydney

Antipholus sure sounds like Philip Sidney talk: Centaur, gangrenous wound...

Lovely video Clare! Especially as a first video! So I don't think you're right about Malvolio being Hatton. I think William Knollys is the actual Malvolio figure. I won't go too much into that but just wanted to relay why it's not Hatton: From Patrick Buckridge: "The hoaxing letter in Twelfth Night is not written by Malvolio, but to him: the posy should thus logically be associated not with the receiver of the letter but with its real or ostensible writer - that is, with Maria or Olivia, neither of whom makes much of a Hatton figure. Similarly, the 'sheep-biter' epithet does not equate at all easily with 'sheep' (even 'sheep-who-bites',/>ace Ogburn ).' A 'sheep-biter', according to the OED , is primarily 'a dog that bites or worries sheep', with several secondary meanings, one of which, "a malicious or censorious fellow' fits Malvolio well enough.* If the 'sheep' element in the epithet does, or did at some stage in the play' s evolution, contain a cryptic allusion to Hatton, it would more logically have been a reference to somebody who was an enemy, or at least a nuisance, to Hatton (as the dog is to the sheep) than to Hatton himself. If, for the sake of argument, the name of Edward D e Vere were proposed in place of Christopher Hatton as the original for Malvolio, it would at least highlight the reversibility of several of the Oxfordian arguments about Malvolio; the known enmity between the two men, their suspected sexual intentions towards the Queen, and the image ofthe affected fop. All of these can support an Oxford allusion as strongly as a Hatton one. Gabriel Harvey's "Mirror of Tuscanism" provides a well-known description of Oxford's affected foppery on his return from Italy in 1575, and this description provides at least as plausible an external referent for Malvolio's sartorial aberration as anything in Hatton's reputation. There are, of course, many ways in which Malvolio is patently not Oxford: Malvolio is a servant and a stickler for moral proprieties, and Oxford was neither. But no more was Hatton. And if the meaning of Malvolio's name-'I wish [thee] ill' -were to be applied to areal individual at Elizabeth's court there were undoubtedly many there who would have thought (rightiy or wrongly) that it fitted the haughty Oxford better than the courteous Hatton." Buckridge doesn't mean to say Malvolio is Oxford, but that these generic traits fit a lot of folks, such that Oxford fits the bill as much as Hatton once we realize the Fortunate&Happy and Sheep references aren't to Malvolio but to the folks who are antagonizing Malvolio (Maria [Mary], Toby [?], Andrew[Philip/Hatton composite], which is to say Sidney circle folks. But along those lines Orsino is better described as/by Leicester. His herald is the Bear with the Ragged Staff. Hence Orsino, Italian for Bear. (Similarly, Oberon is a pun, O-bear-on. Bear itself is a pun on his name in French, "ro-bear")

I was leaving comments piecemeal and they spiraled out of all proportion, so I'm collating them into one here: First off, HATS OFF to you Claire. This is really amazing work. I donno how you're able to so fluidly move from seeming minutiae to seeming minutiae only to make us realize they are profound pieces of evidence. I hope one day you sit down with John Lyly's Endymion or Campaspe and give one of them the same ContextWS treatment because I think you could knock it out of the park. But some notes for this video: 1:37 No Joke. What a task. 3:56 Neville's continental tour included Robert Sidney as well I believe. I know in 78/79 they visited Vienna together, meaning those two (and obviously, of course, Philip Sidney in 73) are the only WS candidates to visit the location of Measure for Measure. 22:07 Could this be the same CYGNUS as the one who writes a predatory poem for Jonson's Sejanus? The other unnamed poet in that prefatory material is PHILO--also heavily suggestive of Philip. Dating should preclude that possibility, but wilder things have happened. (Sidenote/SneakPeek: Brady, Daniel Cowan and I are attempting to get John Dee's Horoscope for Sidney translated, which is still in process, but so far seems like the conventional dating for that Horoscope is correct, 1570. John Dee indeed seems to predict Sidney's death exactly to the year and cause a decade and half before the event, but not conclusive until we get more translated) 23:26 Not sure if relevant to the reference being made here, but Falconbridge I think should call to mind King John. Falconbridge's heir is kind of the start of the whole play, as the two Falconbridge brothers are arguing over his inheritance. One of them is disinherited when he realizes he is the bastard of King Richard. What was his name? PHILIP. 29:34 Absolutely brilliant. Love this. 41:39 Not quite. Yes, Harvey is Hobbinol, and yes, technically sort of Spenser is Colin--but Spenser isn't actually Colin Clout. That is Sidney. (Citation needed on my part) Harvey himself seemed to have an actual attraction to Sidney which Katherine Duncan Jones relates in her biography of Sidney. Harvey apparently wrote several erotic poems for/about Sidney. Apparently it creeped Sidney out. Not sure of the dating on those, which will be majorly important. So Hobby Horse, seems to me not just a reference to Hobbinol, but a reference to his being a major fanboy of Sidney, as Philip is horse lover in Greek. Which brings up my last point below... 49:03 I'm not so sure Sidney was anything like a fan of Harvey's. Duncan-Jones seems to almost paint the opposite picture. Sidney seems aloof to Harvey and then off-put by Harvey. And this wouldn't be too out of the norm. That seems like almost the MO of Sidney--in stark contrast to Oxford--Sidney never seems to champion any of his patronees, and, often seems to demure or ignore some. Let us remember Gosson's attack on the Theatre was dedicated to Sidney. How did Sidney follow that up? By completely disagreeing with Gosson, and flipping the script by writing Defence of Poetry. Similarly, to whom is Bruno dedicating his Heroic Furies? Sidney. I could flip the script and ask, who is/are the only candidates with heavy ties to Bruno--whose presence could explain the difference of Biron and Berowne? Well, it's Florio and Sidney. And as much as Florio has ties to French in 83-85, he doesn't have the 70s ties. And as much as we want to make factional divides, Nashe prints Sidney. EO is in that printing as EO. If we're able to say Oxford can write a play (or many plays) about Leicester and Queen--is there really all that much factionality happening? So my two cents, without too much stylistic evidence to back it up, at least at the moment... This is all right in line with pretty much everything I've been pitching over the last year: both Lyly and early WS is a merging of EO and PS. And it's not just them two, they're just the two best and brightest by 78. But if we go all the way back to 63 with Tancred and Gismund, we see the model for Elizabethan drama and for WS specifically comes from courtly masques. We also see that the norm always was collaboration amongst nobles. So this is the same crowd writing the Golden Tree Tilt in 81. Same crowd writing 100 Sundry Flowers, Paradise of Dainty Devices. If we wanted to go farther ahead than LLL, all this still holds--TGV, CoE, MND are other easy examples of this. BUTTTT this is super general and begs for stylistic analysis to get to the knitty-gritty details: how many hands, and who is which? Somewhat relatedly, Bob is on the right track, but I think he far too often oversteps: Greene and Nashe are often the same hands--plural, Nashe is more the one and Greene is more the other. We can see this more readily as those hands/voices develop into their new monikers, Dekker and Chettle respectively. I'm stating this all rather matter of factly, but fact is these are no facts, but my general leanings--but after a couple years of doubting my leanings only to find them having some actual integrity and import, I've decided maybe I'm not crazy and maybe I actually do know what--somewhat at least--I'm talking about. Claire this video absolutely made my day, week and month. THANK YOU. Please keep them coming!!! (No rush/No pressure😅) One last open ended question: If Berowne is Oxford, what are we to make of Rosaline? Anne Cecil? Penelope Rich? Anne Vavasour? (For any Florio fans reading this, same question may be asked of Bruno) She just seems a little too realized to not be a stand in in this allegory.

I have been checking every day for this. Thanks for another great presentation on what Stratfordians call a "difficult" play. Well, it is difficult for them since they cannot reconcile the life of "their man" to the content of the play. As usual, you are advancing Shakespearean studies by leaps and bounds. Your careful research and delightful narration make what could be a difficult play even for doubters, much easier to understand. Thank you for making such a pun- and joke-laden play so clear. You have done an exceptional job going through the play to find them all, or at least most of them. How ironic that Harvey could not find Greene or Nashe, when "they" were always at court. (48:28) I love your tribute to Alexander Waugh and your father. Both encouraged a fantastic and thorough scholar of the first rank.

This is all too timely Claire. Marianna over at ResoluteFlorio just dropped her LLL video (which is very interesting, linking it to Bruno and Florio naturally a la Yates). But I will say it was so focused on 83-85 that I found myself wishing I had you present to help me connect her dots to the 70s. Also see that some of my favorite folks on YT are all chiming in here! Dare I say, a community is building? (Not too loudly lest my breath blow out that candle) Also haven't watched/listened at all yet. Literally saw it and clicked. Will be back after listening (as soon as tonight as late as Friday.) So glad you're back!!

That is a lot to chew on. There are so many topical readings of LLL and all seem to be well supported by the text; I am still looking for a unitary reading which seems acceptable. Just a quick note. By all accounts it was Lyly who convinced Oxford that Harvey had attacked him, long before Nashe was on the scene. Harvey's denials strike me as less than sincere, he and Spenser are pretty firmly attached to the Leicester/Sidney circle by the time of the Audley End visit.

kzbin.info/www/bejne/mH3FYZVup8Rsibs Bob Prechter on Thomas Nashe Part 1 kzbin.info/www/bejne/n3jQmISZmdiUY6c Bob Prechter on Thomas Nashe Part 2 + Q&A kzbin.info/www/bejne/aorRoahnq9WGna8 Professor Rima Greenhill: Elizabeth I & Ivan the Terrible as Inspiration for Love's Labour's Lost. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bXqUpqyuhtGFias Loves Labours Lost 1975 shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/Oxfordian2006_Miller-Oaths.pdf Oaths foresworn in Loves Labour Lost www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Grief_and_Women_Writers_in_the_English_R/EYkaBQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=I+have+found+unum+par,+a+pair,+papisticorum+bedorum&pg=PA50&printsec=frontcover www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526142597/9781526142597.00011.xml Spenser and Harvey philological.cal.bham.ac.uk/forsett/act2trans.html Pedantius babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015005586832&seq=9 Eva Turner Clarke babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015005586832&seq=116 page 98 Pricket, Sore, Sorel nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-insults/ quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A93591.0001.001/1:6.1?rgn=div2;view=fulltext ECLOGUE I. Treating of honest Love and its happy success Intituled FAUSTUS. (Mantuan) kzbin.info/www/bejne/fmLCc3Vmgtx-bq8 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST | PART 5: GIORDANO BRUNO'S COMEDY IS THE REAL SOURCE OF THE PLAY

ABSOLUTELY love all of the close readings. And indeed Alencon as bottom is spot on. BUT one issue I have with MND as by EO is--well I have a few issues: 1) Oberon suggests Leicester--why would EO write a play for or about Leicester? 2) EO is pro French marriage, why is he spoofing the same man he was in support of? 3) MND seems mostly if not completely analogous to Endymion in respect of the allegorical interpretation. I still struggle with Oxfordian readings of Endymion too. Who is Eumenides? Who is Semele? Josephine Waters Bennett couldn't figure that out. 4) Seems to me Puck is our authorial avatar in the play. Puck doesn't really fit EO to me. That said, a lot of this would be resolved if it turned out we were all overestimating the tensions/hostilities between EO and Leicester/Sidney.

Hey there Context! Getting around to your older videos. I know several of us are chomping at the bit for part 2 of LLL (But no rush!!!) Really really enjoying this one. Listening while driving so lack of video is not a bother/burden at all. I think MND is absolutely crucial to piecing our understanding of the 80s and 90s timeline of WS/connecting Lyly and WS. It seems to me to fit in with LLL/TGV/CoE as one of these 80s quasi-Euphuist plays where the line between Lyly and WS is blurred. YET, it also seems to fit in with the post sonnet explosion plays of the mid 90s where there's heavy amounts of verse and rhyming. I think R&J maybe fits in both categories as well. Similarly, I think the Tempest may be an early play and then reworked in late part of 1600's decade. But I will say there's a surprising amount of language overlap between MND and Tempest. Still not sure if that is early language in both or if that is the language of late revising hands. I lean towards the latter--which may suggest MND is worked over 3 tines at least.

How interesting....i have mused on this possible scenario, Cervantes picking up stories while a miserable prisoner could hardly have contained himself if de Veres pompous challenge crossed his ears! The dates, the timing, the proximity of Algiers-Messina- Palermo, the personal connections with the Palermo viceroy Sessa, Don John etc all make it a deliciously inviting proposition........and all this time, the lovable Don Quixote turns out to be..... the bard himself!

Hey Context!! Finally watched this one and WOW. Such excellent digging. But more inportantly very careful and cautious analysis. This is so so so so refreshing for me in contrast with some other SAQ content I've been tuning into. I've been diving into some essays on LLL to compliment this video and hope to bring up some questions and comments from that. Can't wait for Part 2!!!

I have an Imac. In some parts of the video, my mouse stopped working and I had to switch to the trackpad.

Congratulations on another superb video. There is so much to digest that it is impossible for me to comment on all of it except to say you have done a thorough job of setting the play in the context of the events of the 1570s and concerning the court of Navarre. I like that you ended the presentation with an open question to viewers asking who was best poised to know about all of these events. This engages viewers and makes them think a bit about what you have presented and encourages them to do their own research. I believe that is one of the best tactics to use in these videos since it gives them a sense that they are not just listening to a dry lecture (though yours could never be dry) but participating in examining a mystery worthy of their input. As usual, your lively narration makes for good listening. I cannot wait for part 2.

Wonderful effort to untangle this most complicatedly topical of the Shakespeare Plays. If one were to construct a network mapping of these people, I believe the man in the middle would be Philip Sidney, who appeared in your presentation as a potential husband for a sister of William of Orange, but is actually closely connected to all these players. He was close to Henry of Navarre and godfather to a child of de Mornay, Navarre's ambassador. He was finally knighted in 1584 so he could stand proxy for Casimir's induction as a Knight of the Garter. He was heir to Leicester who also figures prominently, as a potential husband to Mary (he demurred because he was already secretly married to Letice Knowles). When Leicester was out of favor after the Queen learned of the marriage it fell on Philip to become the leading advocate for intervention in the low countries and opponent to the marriage to Alencon, positions which damaged his promising political career. Other than his commentary in Defense of Poesy, Sidney does not appear to have had much interest in writing drama, though he is credited with writing or contributing to several masques for the court during this period. This is the time when he and Spenser were living together at Leicester House in London, surrounded by the Sidney Circle of writers which included Dyer, Harvey, Florio, Davies, Raleigh and others. Leicester was the sponsor of James Burbage's players at the Theater. It was also near the height of Philip's rivalry with Oxford, who had his own group of writers often viewed as rivals to the Sidney group including Lily who figures here. I don't really have a view on what this means for authorship, but it surely reveals something. I suspect you have seen Rima Greenhill's work on allusions in the play to the Muscovy Company and the marriage negotiations with Ivan the Terrible, which adds another dimension of court topicality to the festivities. My general sense is that Shakespeare does not do satire, but likes to pepper the works with caricatures of Court figures (sort of the Disney does Easter Eggs for adults to laugh at children's movies), but LLL may be the exception. I would love to hear how you think the play worked as drama before the court (and on the public stage) when you have completed your analysis Looking forward to part 2.

Love's Labour's Lost - Jeremy Brett - TV - 1975 kzbin.info/www/bejne/bXqUpqyuhtGFias Harbage, A., “Love’s Labour’s Lost and the early Shakespeare”, Philological Quarterly, XLI, 1, January 1962 resources.warburg.sas.ac.uk/pdf/emh81b2457038.pdf Henri IV - The King of France (1589-1610) - The Good King kzbin.info/www/bejne/h2eXe6Sui75jfJo ///C:/Users/HP/Downloads/Shakespeare_and_the_French_Lens.pdf Giving and Receiving: "Love's Labour's Lost" and the Politics of Exchange MARK THORNTON BURNETT www.jstor.org/stable/43447446?seq=12 The satirical comedy, Love's labour's lost / a study by Eva Turner Clark babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015005586832&seq=9 The Elizabethan Court Day by Day--1578 folgerpedia.folger.edu/mediawiki/media/images_pedia_folgerpedia_mw/archive/9/94/20170609165556!ECDbD_1578.pdf The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1578 #31 in our series by John Lothrop Motley public-library.uk/pdfs/7/153.pdf

Thanks Clare, hope you're well, this content is really fascinating and well researched. And then the audio presentation...is awful, too many jumps and cuts and repeats (as acknowledged by yourself). Couldn't you just take this down and rerecord the audio and then upload it again, whenever you have a spare half hour on a rainy day please. If not no probs, but this deserves to be so much better presented. As is, I can't forward this to any of my pals who have an interest in this topic. Thanks!

Thanks for another excellent video. Despite some of the glitches, I was able to follow the argument fairly easily. You might be interested to know that Sonnet 116 and 117 appear to be about de Vere's attempts to restore his wife Anne's virtue among the members of the Court. Sonnet 116, the famous one which begins "Let not the marriage of true minds/ Admit impediments..." seems to be de Vere's opening statement (he uses the word brief in line 11 as a clue). The final couplet is a fabulous "mic drop" pair of lines: "If this be error and upon me proved / I never wrote nor no man ever loved." Sonnet 117 is his appeal where he challenges his wife to prove he has not done her any wrong: "Accuse me thus..." is how the poem begins and it ends with: "Since my appeal says I did strive to prove / The constancy and virtue of thy love." Since we can date Much Ado About Nothing to around the time he was reconciled with Anne as you state, these two sonnets must date from the same period: around December 1581 or perhaps early in 1582. Once the sonnets can be mapped to de Vere's life (a project I am working on), the authorship issue will have been largely settled among thinking people. Until then it is an uphill battle for which your series of videos make impressive ammunition.

Great work!

Great work. I very much enjoyed it. Edward De Vere was Shake-Speare , people need to get over it. Also, Looney was a genius for figuring it out & inventing "profiling"

Sources The Arden Shakespeare Much do About Nothing www.ranker.com/list/everyday-life-of-a-venetian-courtesan/genevieve-carlton Richard Tarlton and the Earthquake of 1580 Campbell, Lily B. (1941). "Richard Tarlton and the Earthquake of 1580". Huntington Library Quarterly. 4 (3): 293-301. doi:10.2307/3815706. JSTOR 3815706. The Tudor Sumptuary Laws Wilfrid Hooper The English Historical Review, Vol. 30, No. 119 (Jul., 1915), Hercules Shaven: A Centering Mythic Metaphor in Much Ado About Nothing ANDREW B. CRICHTON Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Winter 1975), pp. 619-626 (8 pages) shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/BC1-MuchAdos-Showerman.pdf

I came back to Shakespeare and the context of the works while researching Henry Hudson ~1565-~1611. The proposed Bermuda / Sea Venture connection never made sense to me because the play is 1) not primarily about a similar wreck, 2) Prospero is clearly NOT analogous to an author (eg. "Shakespeare") and 3) the play makes the connections to Naples and Milan quite clear. The idea that the English would commemorate the wreck of the Sea Venture, an illegal (according to Spain / Holy Roman Empire) and ill-fated mission to resupply the struggling, semi-secret Jamestown foothold, is an example of how bad scholarship on such issues related to Shakespeare works has been. Since 1769 the subject has been plagued by those who work backward from the conclusion that the play is the last-written and was written in 1611 and then make everything fit that unsupported assumption. I am more persuaded that "Prospero" and the general impetus for the play, which seems to rework "The Spanish Maze", has to do with rehabilitating the reputation of Dr John Dee and with making use of trendy stage effects. Others have argued that plays in 1604/1605 lampooned scenes in from the Tempest putting the composition date in the 1598 to 1603 range. shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/Oxfordian2007_Strit-Kos-Maze.compressed.pdf

Very interesting and nicely done - thankyou. Assumes of course that Elizabeth WAS de Vere's daughter (he doubted it for some time) and that nowhere in the chain was there any 'infidelity' - but that issue applies also for William's rights as heir to the British throne.

Despite the all the technical difficulties, I thought this video raised a wealth of interesting points, I'm definitely going to listen to it again I've listened to all the presentations you've released so far, they've included a wealth of interesting details... thanks for all the work you've put in so far, I'll be re-listening to everything you've released, and looking forward to all your future presentations... Keep up the great work!

Thanks for doing a summary of your previous work. It helps give me an idea of what you are doing. Your voice is perfect for these videos as it is smooth and you pronounce your words clearly. I will watch your earlier videos and give feedback where I can. Keep up the great work in getting the truth out.

I am sorry that I have had a few technical difficulties with this video. There are a few jumps and repeats in the audio. I did try and solve these problems hopefully I can get a solution by next time. Here are the links: www.academia.edu/68582429/Introduction_to_the_Anonymous_Comedy_Laelia_1595_http_www_philological_bham_ac_laelia The OXFORDIAN Volume 23 2021by Katherine Chiljan shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/wpcontent/uploads/TOX23_Chiljan_Prospero_Visconti.pdf www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17450918.2020.1800808#:~:text=In%20the%20first%20place%2C%20the,2.5.104%E2%80%935) shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/SM7.1.pdf quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A01066.0001.001/1:4?rgn=div1;view=fulltext www.jstor.org/stable/4174078?read-now=1&seq=12#page_scan_tab_contents shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/SOSNL_1999_3.pdf

The only fly in this ointment is the possibility that Anne's first daughter, Elizabeth de Vere, was not Edward's and was perhaps the result of infidelity or rape (as in Rape of Lucrece).

While sonnets and other poetry, in general, are written by single persons plays and other theatrical works tend to be written and rewritten by teams of people. Henslowe's diary shows us how these teams worked, how they were paid and what the business side of Elizabethan theater looked like. The Stratford position is steadily crumbling and they now admit that at least some of the works were "collaboration". They are however using that term as if there is a physical person from Stratford sitting next to John Fletcher. This avoids something unthinkable to their position which is that Fletcher rewrote 'Henry VIII' and 'Two Noble Kinsmen' without approval from their mythologized figure. I came to the SAQ from adjacent research on Henry Hudson which led me to debates about "The Tempest." I found quickly that the Stratfordian assertions about that play and its alleged sources (including the 1609 wreck in Bermuda of a Jamestown-bound ship called "Sea Venture") did not hold up any better than the idea that the title of the play 'Hamlet' refers to the 1596 death of Straford's 11 year-old son Hamnet. Nothing is known about Henry Hudson outside of 4 of his voyages -- not his birth date, death date, training, parentage, etc. I had to research the context of Hudson to find out more about him and the decisions he made. This prepared me well for a look into the SAQ which has similar issues. The SAQ also involves many of the same patrons and publishers such as Haklyut. In 1578 deVere borrowed 3,000 pounds to back a mission by Martin Frobischer to bring back, from northern Canada, tons of what they assumed was gold in an unrefined form. After much time and expense it was determined to be mostly iron pyrite (aka 'fool's gold'). This episode fit well with 'Merchant of Venice' and the borrowing of 3,000 ducats, "all that glitters is not gold" etc. However I do not think the answer to the SAQ is single-author. The Stratford myth has damaged our understanding of that era and the nature of creative genius by working backward from the (to some) unquestionable assertion that a single person wrote, alone, all of the plays in the 1623 publication. The truth seems to be that, just like the works best documented by Henslowe, great stories are handed down, adopted and adapted to fit the current context and then live on to be reworked again and again. Eg. 'The Lion King' is 'Hamlet' but Hamlet echoes the Roman story of Brutus + the anonymous Scandinavian Saga of Hrolf Kraki and other sources. (It certainly has nothing to do with the untimely death of a young son whom Stratford had mostly abandoned years earlier when he moved 160km to London, a journey of 4 or 5 days at the time.) Stratford IS part of the group running the Burbage theater(s) and Ben Jonson seems to malign him when he write the bit character Sogliardo, as a general mockery of socially ambitious fools. Sogliardo is a country bumpkin, new to the city, who boasts of the coat of arms he has recently purchased.

Great work!

Act 5 scene 1 contains one of two appearance of a character named William. Here William is an uneducated country boy who thinks himself a rival to Touchstone for the hand of Audrey. TOUCHSTONE Give me your hand. Art thou learned? WILLIAM No, sir. TOUCHSTONE Then learn this of me: TO HAVE IS TO HAVE. For it is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other. For all your writers do consent that ipse is “he.” Now, you are not ipse, for I am he. "to have is to have" in Shakespeare's beloved Italian is "avere e avere" which is a pun on the family motto of the Vere family. Touchstone (Shakespeare) is telling William that no matter who gets credit, it is "a vere" who really deserves it.

These videos are brilliant!! Keep them coming!! I have immersed myself in the De Vere/Shakespeare authorship debate, and the Bard’s works, these last few years and yet I ALWAYS learn new things. Plural. I know that takes exhaustive research. I’m grateful for your time and detail.

Marlowe AKA Shake-speare AKA E de Vere, "Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might: Who E. Vere loved that loved not at first sight?"

Spike Millican kzbin.info/www/bejne/ipyycoieqZh6a9E kzbin.info/www/bejne/pYaaZJ6gariqb68 Hank Wittemore 100 reasons hankwhittemore.com/?s=as+you+like+it&submit=Search As You Like It: Is Touchstone vs. William the First Authorship Story? shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/as-you-like-it-first-authorship-story/ The Arte of English Poesie www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16420/pg16420.txt Dating Shakespeare’s Plays deveresociety.co.uk/edward-de-vere-as-shakespeare/dating-shakespeares-plays/ Green’s Groatsworth of Witt shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/greenes-groats-worth-witte-first-printed-allusion-shakespeare-playwright Leicester’s Commonwealth www.dpeck.info/write/leic-comm1.htm#intro The Real Martin Marprelate www.jstor.org/stable/459034?read-now=1#page_scan_tab_contents The Rhetoric of Reaction: The Martin Marprelate Tracts (1588-89), Anti- Martinism, and the Uses of Print in Early Modern England www.jstor.org/stable/2542987?read-now=1&seq=19#page_scan_tab_contents Review of Elizabeth Appleton’s AN ANATOMY OF THE MARPRELATE CONTROVERSY shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/review-of-appletons-marprelate-controversy/ Oxford’s friend, Arthur Throckmorton:, a personal link with William Shakspere of Stratford deveresociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/NL-2015april-pp22-30.pdf Oxford’s Land Sales, Castle Hedingham and the Sheepcote in As You Like It deveresociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/JC-2015Oct-CastleHedingham.pdf Contemporary Proof that the Poet Earl of Oxford’s Literary Nickname was “Gentle Master William” shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/oxfords-literary-nickname-was-gentle-master-william/ EDWARD DE VERE, EUPHUISM AND BI-SEXUALITY deveresociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/NL_2020_27_2_April_FINAL_05Apr2020-CG.pdf The Dedication to Strange News (1592) shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/dedication-to-strange-news/

wonderful. thanks so much for your work.

Great stuff! I'm interested in hearing about really any of the plays or poems. If I was going to make a request I might say As You Like It or Love's Labour's Lost, those are two that have a lot of mystery to me and that I'm puzzling over.

Excellent. I enjoyed this very much.

This is simply fascinating. That word Bermoothes now makes so much more sense contextually.

"Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, possessed...the poetical skills..." You can't be serious. On his best day he wasn't half as good as Shakespeare on his worst.

Emilia was more likely to have been named for Emilia Lanier, who was mistress to Shakespeare's patron, Baron Hunsdon.

Davies wrote "Had'st thou NOT plaid some Kingly parts in sport, thou hadst bin a companion for a King;" (emphasis mine). Davies is emphatically saying that Shakespeare (here identified as a poet, as a gentleman, AND as an actor) is NOT a courtier.

"...I am apt to believe, that his Skill in the French and Italian Tongues, exceeded his Knowledge in the Roman Language." What contradiction? "Extraordinary learning" would refer to the classics, not to contemporary languages.

Most metal type used in England was cast on the Continent, in countries which didn't have a W in their language. Nearly EVERY book printed in English throughout the 16th and well into the 17th Century used two Vs to make a W.