Considering that in 391 Theodosius made it illegal to be Pagan and punishable by death,..revoked by the Catholic Church in 1962(?), the particular oath you were referring to is one in a very long line of situations where people have to lie to keep their lives. Also, using Symbols ,they can mean one thing to one individual and something completely different to someone else.. 23 April is an important festival of the Goddess Venus, perhaps that's what is really being celebrated rather than George and the Dragon?..Presumably that's another reason why a lot of people prefer there to be confusion with knowing who the author is , because it makes it harder to pin down what is being referred to in the texts. Thank you for discussing these other (more likely)? readings.

We absolutely need more of Dr. Williams. As a poet, I can say that Mary Sidney is one of my great influences.

This is utter ovarrocks. It is supremely unlikely and improbable that any dead woman, whether white or off- colour, wrote the works of Shakespeare.

Very well presented

Shaksper family quote; illiterate illiterate illiterate illiterate greatest writer in history illiterate. Hmm.

I remember seeing this on public television years ago. Is the whole thing available anywhere?

Who wouldn't want to read the lost 'Isle of Dogs'?

This matters for far more serious reasons. It shows that great lies and deceptions can and have been carried out by the very top of society and been perpetuated for many hundreds of years. WE WERE LIED TO and we still are being lied to. This was a systematically organised conspiracy to deceive. This involved not only top members of the English aristocracy but Elizabeth and James 1st. The consequences and motivations may have been reasonably benign but what this reveals should make us wonder how many other matters that have formed the foundations of our historical record are also fraudulent? We already know of some of them, but how many more exist that we have have not yet discovered? The truth is that we live in a world of lies and deceptions some of which are far older then this one. In my opinion virtually everything that we believe is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth is not. This applies to virtually all subject matters, to a great or greater degree. Knowledge is power. This is why our Owners retain so much of the latter and we remain with so little of the former. It is perhaps ironic that the greatest proponent of the Enlightenment namely Sir Francis Bacon was one of the Worlds greatest liars and deceivers as well as one of the smartest and most influential persons ever to have lived. Bacon and his co-conspirators may have had the best intentions in mind when embarking on this great project to deceive the masses, but the motivation is relatively unimportant with regards to its clear implications. This also amply demonstrates that it is far easier to fool someone than convince them that they have been fooled.

"Half wits and demented goons!" I love it, Alexander.

Diane Price is one of my intellectual heroes for her brilliantly original and eminently level-headed research into this question.

So one theory is basically that Edward De Vere paid actor William Shakespeare for use of his brand?

Like a bell in it's beautiful clarity...true enlightenment. 🌟

He's so enjoyable to listen to, I always find myself wishing his lectures went at least twice as long.

Visit 'Sir Bacon'.

Shakespeare the "Works" are genuine, Shakespeare the "Writer" is pure fiction,

Bravo!

"I shall ever be True . . ." "I shall ever be VERE!"

Twenty minutes of free association and magical thinking. .

John Heminges, Henry Condell, and Richard Burbage, three actors of The Lord Chamberlain's Men, a famous acting company that included William Shakespeare, were given money by William Shakespeare of Stratford in his Last Will and Testament in 1616. Two of these actors, John Heminges and Henry Condell, were responsible for having 36 of Shakespeare's plays published in the First Folio in 1623. Ben Jonson's eulogy in the First Folio clearly praises Shakespeare as a great writer. He states that "thy writings to be such, /As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much." Heminges and Condell also praise Shakespeare as a writer, stating that "he thought, he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarse received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who onely gather his works, and give them you, to praise him." These are "his works" and "his papers" that they are publishing. He is clearly presented as the writer of these works in the First Folio. The Last Will and Testament of William Shakespeare of Stratford clearly connects him with the 1623 First Folio through Heminges and Condell and it is clear that Shakespeare is presented as the author of the plays.

I've read Hank's books...but hearing him speak makes the veracity of his argument even clearer! I'm now convinced that the majority of these sonnets were written to Southampton while he was in prison. Prince Tudor theory plausible? Pretty much inescapable if you have gone this far down the rabbit hole! This makes the tragedy even more poignant...since the possibility of a crown would also have been forfeited in the Faustian pact with Cecil and James.

these readings are so special, such a treat they're on youtube!

Fantastic paper!

Rylance's lighting courtesy of Caravaggio! ha, seriously, very lovely.

A rift between America and Europe becomes now a must - as the West realises today that America must return back to America, bringing Christopher Columbus' age to a close. Geography and laws of physics matter - now fossil fuels - no more. Europe, being closer to the little remaining oil reserves in the Middle East, Russia and Africa - will likely keep Shakespeare alive, America will likely drop it. All popular figures during the era of our outgoing Western Civilisation - were more or less a product of burning finite fossil fuels - like no tomorrow. As fossil fuels deplete to the ground by the hour - those figures become harder and harder to sustain in the mind of the public - Darwin, Karl Marx, Einstein, Keynes, Turing - and even Shakespeare. Finite fossil fuels are dangerously hypnotic to humans, their consciousness, reasoning and mental capacity. Humans were not ready morally, ethically and intellectually to start the mass extraction of fossil fuels with the advent of the steam engine 300 years ago. The Magna Carta requires today overhauling - adding to it the right for humans to understand what Energy really is - before any other commandment; “In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most. No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores. No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it. This universal truth applies to all systems. Energy, like time, flows from past to future” (2017).

I wish such rigor was standard across the board in Authorship study.

...the fact that women had one major additional reason to hide their identities oddly often goes unmentioned: women were still not allowed to write plays in ostensibly enlightened and liberal Elizabethan England. Paul G

It should be clarified for the record that the annotations formerly identified as appearing in Appian (first by Casson and Rubinstein in their book and then by me in this talk) are actually in a copy of Cassius Dio that is bound up with a copy of Appian (which, however contains annotations entirely or mostly by Sir Henry Savile and none, apparently by the "Audley End Unknown" annotator). This matters because although both Appian and Dio include materials relevant to *Julius Caesar,* the wording and emphases of the two accounts differ. Dio, however, also includes an account of Antony and Cleopatra that is absent in Appian, which ends c. 43 BCE around the time of assassination of Caesar Augustus.

A very interesting talk...if you can grasp it at Earl's speed of delivery! Slow down already!

I’ve been watching Shakespeare authorship videos a lot lately. It seems like there were multiple authors, de Vere, Bacon, others, like the Impressionists, hanging out, having fun inspiring each other. I’ve seen Fake or Fortune enough to realize it’s hard to tell sometimes which artist did what. Paint analysis and X-rays aren’t very helpful in the case of literature though.

Well done. Any thoughts Roger on who the writer may have been?

It was great to see those two flapping around while Barber commanded the answers.

05:19 that's a religious argument.

2:50 "but they all think Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare" circular logic from Edmondson.

I love the ad hominem attacks on Ros!

09:59 sometimes absence of evidence IS evidence of absence!

The man from Stratford was called from Shaskpere!

07:19 well the guy from Stratford could be one of 78 then! It applies to him too - doesn't tell you anything about who is right.

03:59 Evolution has nothing to do with theism. These guys don't know what they're talking about.

Why do they want to shut down academic debate? Is this not a form of censure? I can only conclude they don't want to have the debate.

that woman was black women, the world most ketp secrets, is the history of black people.

A Young Shakespeare went to London and he took up with a theater company, more like a criminal organization posing as a playhouse. Young Shakespeare did well enough with his extra curricular jobs to buy a big house back home in 1597 and only a rather modest rap sheet to show for his efforts. Do you really think a bush league Peaky Blinder wrote the First Folio? His name was likely used because who would believe that an illiterate country bumpkin would write anything. So who wrote Shakespeare? About a hundred stock playwrights from the dawn of Leicester's Men to the final editors, Ben Jonson and John Florio. The Thomas North material begins with Leicester's Men and migrates with Burbage to London. The Artificial Intelligence Hypax research has found many unique John Florio words in the First Folio. Lords did not write plays, they provided material and paid playwrights to do the writing. Leicester was Florio's first patron so John Florio and a Burbage were both present at the dawn of the plays that became the First Folio and also part of the publication process some 40 years later. There is far too much evidence of far too many contributions by too many different people to be able to pinpoint a single writer as the writer. Beyond all doubt the one unifying voice who pulled it all together was John Florio and the presence of his unique words proves the point. For more on Florio's words, kzbin.info/www/bejne/iKLOf419Z9iUbqc Don't you just love lucrative tourist scams?

The sound is too garbled. Perhaps a redo is in order.

It's a joy to listen to Elizabeth Winkler. She's always so erudite, knowledgeable, centered, and focused. She also picks controversial topics without becoming an advocate for one side or another. This was delightfully educational and eye opening, for me. Thanks!

Wow! I wouldn't want to do this analysis as my profession (that's just me talking), but Dr. Williams' analysis gave me a totally new and rejuvenated appreciation of Shake-Speare's greatness, if that is at all possible. Thanks so much!

This was terrific, but to me (a newly converted Oxfordian) it suggested that something completely unrelated to the authorship issues was at play: All these scholars that Elizabeth Winkler tried to talk to seem to have a vested interest AKA a job as Stratfordians, and are not allowed, possibly not willing and incapable as well of mentioning the Unmentionable: Maybe William Shakspeare [not a misspelling] , the Stratford man we call Shakespeare was not the author. Oh heaves! Heresey! The world is coming to an end! How dare you discuss what we [All] know to be a fact which we refuse to prove! What next? Shakespeare a woman? Maybe a Jewish woman [see: 'Reform Judaism,' "Unmasking Shakespeare," Summer 2010, pages 34-39 & 46]? maybe a Scottish woman? and so forth. I'm very much looking forward to reading Elizabeth Winkler's book. I just hope that, when I do, a bolt of lightening will not strike me dead. Oh Horror! Thanks for a great presentation, Elizabeth Winkler.

Ros is a star

Shakespeare attribution studies are contributing hugely to our understanding of how Shakespeare wrote, who he collaborated with, what his source texts were, and so on. Under the weight of that evidence, the "authorship question" _is_ going away, or, at least, is gaining no more traction among serious Shakespeare scholars than it ever has done. As far as Shakespeare's life is concerned, there is plenty of evidence to suppose that Shakespeare of Stratford had the educational and social background to have (substantially) written the plays published in his name. Here is a video I made summing up Shakespeare's social circle in Stratford that indicates this pretty clearly: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aXKvhmdqr7irfsUfeature=shared

John Heminges, Henry Condell, and Richard Burbage, three actors of The Lord Chamberlain's Men, a famous acting company that included William Shakespeare, were given money by William Shakespeare of Stratford in his Last Will and Testament in 1616. Two of these actors, John Heminges and Henry Condell, were responsible for having 36 of Shakespeare's plays published in the First Folio in 1623. Ben Jonson's eulogy in the First Folio clearly praises Shakespeare as a great writer. He states that "thy writings to be such, /As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much." Heminges and Condell also praise Shakespeare as a writer, stating that "he thought, he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarse received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who onely gather his works, and give them you, to praise him." These are "his works" and "his papers" that they are publishing. He is clearly presented as the writer of these works in the First Folio. The Last Will and Testament of William Shakespeare of Stratford clearly connects him with the 1623 First Folio through Heminges and Condell and it is clear that Shakespeare is presented as the author of the plays.

Scholarship of the first order, representing decades of diligence. Discovering Hank Whittemore's analysis of the Sonnets, and their purpose, is a truly gratifying encounter.