"In Praise of a Contented Mind" by Edward De Vere (poetry reading)

[@evermoore3738]

Edward de Vere grew up in a literate home with the largest library in Europe. He was related to major literary figures. He had books dedicated to him and was praised as a poet and writer of the 'best' comedies. De Vere was a lawyer, a soldier, a courtier, a Privy Councillor AND most of all, he inherited a play company from his father and ran two others, besides owning a theatre. De Vere visited Italy where half the plays take place. This is sufficient to think he was intimately connected with the plays of Shakespeare, if not the writer. The man from Stratford is a blank slate about whom we know practically nothing.

[@thepoet4146]

This is Avery nice piece , I love it . Great message in it .

[@PismoBeach]

Always a favorite one. Thank you.

[@opssingh1450]

I love this poem since my School days & there after could not locate but found on this Great You Tube. Read it & enjoy.

[@Jeremyramone]

excellent choice, one of my all time favorites, thanks kindly

[@worldlystone]

Very nice.Keep them coming!

[@polymath7]

"They get with toil, they keep with fear. Such cares my mind could never bear" I often wonder, due to phonetic drift, whether certain lines of poetry written earlier than roughly 1800 were intended as slanted rhyme or not. Sometimes it's obvious, where a slanted rhyme will clearly sound poetically off key, but here I'd say it's highly equivocal.

[@almahernandez1360]

Love it..it pictures me and my man❤️❤️❤️

[@SpokenVerse]

@thallassocracy Shakespeare examined human behaviour but he didn't write prescriptions. He tended to get stuck in turning the moment "to be or not to be" etc. It seems they had to feed him plots because he couldn't move things along. De Vere's nature was the very opposite to Shakespeare's, I'd say. I'm not pleased with this reading. Simon Callow is a great reader, it's an honour to be mentioned in his company. Thanks for your support.

[@CaroleMcDonnell]

Elizabethan poetry! The best! Thanks!

[@polymath7]

@johnalanhale5 It's really quite simple; these are chronological terms. "Elizabethan", naturally enough, means contemporaneous with the reign of Elizabeth the 1st; "Jacobean" with that of James the 1st (formerly James IV of Scotland) who succeeded Elizabeth to the English throne upon her death in (If memory serves) 1603. As an interesting aside, "Macbeth" is thought to have been written for James IV, a pompous dolt who fancied himself a scholar and especial expert on the subject of witches

[@fatmaomar2181]

Lovely

[@johnalanhale5]

@polymath7 as a poet, i personally believe, if the condition of the poem matters as a priority, that would leave the content to waste. But yes, having an equal concern for both is highly essential. Seeing how detailed these artists were with their developments, lines, etc. By condition, i mean, of course, the format, or the structure, organized building blocks of literary foundation to the reader. But, nonetheless, it is all about appearances and the meaning that envelopes them.

[@johnalanhale5]

Spokenverse, i have been having trouble differentiating Jacobean Poetry via Shakespeare and Elizabethan. If you please, could you help me clarify this?

[@johnalanhale5]

@polymath7 sometimes i think shakespeare could have possibly been both an Elizabethan/Jacobean playwright/poet lol like John Donne lol haha they had to deal with alot of tension writing what they had wrote. Idk what james iv, but that is something new to me. :) i learned something today :D thanks for that interesting piece

[@polymath7]

That (wax?) figure at the end -I wonder of it is based upon, or perhaps even made from- a death mask, skull, or complete preseved head, like the -I don't even know what you'd call it- of Jeremy Bentham in that Oxford hall...

[@johnalanhale5]

@polymath7 so, he was the one who spurred this thought on witchcraft, or at least excited and entertained the thought into the minds of others? I've read a little, not a whole lot. But if memory serves, i believe this idea became somewhat of a paradox on how to treat others and well taken into the Trial of the Salem with witches, where it prospered, sadly. Funny, he called himself a king, but ended as a murderer of future generations. lol

[@johnalanhale5]

@polymath7 ive heard about that, also, its deliciously skeptical to say that Marlowe was Shakespeare, how can that be if he was one of the things that inspired him,? just a young boy getting started on writing plays. haha i love this resolve to embrace skeptism. But people take it way too far.

[@johnalanhale5]

@polymath7 ive heard about that, also, its deliciously skeptic to say that Marlowe was Shakespeare, how can that be if he was one of the things that inspired him, just a young boy getting started on writing plays. haha

[@johnalanhale5]

@polymath7 ingenious! perhaps, you could tell me more about this 'heathen who claimed the English throne' He sounds like real pal. haha

[@johnalanhale5]

@polymath7 'Skeptism can be beneficial to seek those things we long to uncover, but it can lead to faithless, ignorant, blithering idiots if given the right person.'-Me

[@polymath7]

Nice, but this guy sure as hell didn't write 'Twelfth Night', 'Hamlet' and 'King Lear'. It's hilarious the lengths to which Oxfordians (and other Shakespeare skeptics) will go to prove their idiotic hypotheses. "..that *E. Vere, I,* was born to set it right...." I once saw Tom Stoppard make a deliciously witty off the cuff remark remark about this kind of verbal astrology on the Charlie Rose show: "Yes, well, Charlie Rose by any other name..."

[@thallassocracy]

Simon Callow thinks that this clown wrote Shakespeare. 48 lines to express what might have been said in 8. Sadly, Callow's is still the best reading I own of the complete sonnets. A lot of people depend on you.