John Byrne has several popular lies he likes to tell about me. One of his favorites jus resurfaced over on his board in a thread about whether the internet has ruined comics, in which he responds to the following set-up line–
“Wasn’t the ending to Alpha Flight #12 spoiled at a comic convention by another comic professional?”
–with the following lie:
“Peter David handed out xeroxes of Guardian’s death at a con about a month before the book shipped.”
Nnnnnno. A popular lie of John’s, but no. Number one, it wasn’t at a convention; it was at a get-together for retailers. Number two, it wasn’t Guardian’s death. It was an unlettered two page dream sequence in which Heather was seeing a dessicated Guardian tearing out the ground. Number three, it was part of a package of about two dozen photocopied highlights from assorted Marvel titles. Number four, the material in question was handed to me by Denny O’Neil, the book’s editor when I–in my capacity as sales manager at the time–was going around collecting material to put into the package. And when I said to him, “Are you sure you want me to include this in the material?” Denny replied, “Sure, what’s the harm?” Number five, retailers at the get together had no idea that the sequence actually indicated that Guardian really died. I know this because when John showed up at the get-together, he looked at the material, screamed at me at the top of his lungs, “How could you be showing this to retailers?!? It gives away the fact that Guardian dies!” and stormed out of the room, slowing only long enough to kick over a standing ashtray on his way out. At which point stunned retailers said, “Guardian DIES?,” started looking at the xeroxes again, and were muttering, “I thought it was just a dream sequence…”
Set your watches. I’m sure John will be hauling out the equally fun “Peter David was so stupid he had a character fall to his death underwater” lie sometime within the next six months. That’s one of his favorites.
PAD
• 
Aside from the fact that Byrne is a raving, abusive, lunatic, the main reason I have for believing PAD 100% and Byrne, well, not at all, is that every single time one of these ‘discussions’ starts, it’s because Byrne goes on the attack and tells some ridiculous story about how Peter David screwed him over or Peter David messed up this character or Peter David ate puppies for breakfast and then had kitties and babies for lunch and dinner.
In other words: Byrne crazy liar person with vendetta against Peter David. Peter David just minding his own beeswax until he has to defend himself. Again.
One addendum to my last post: yeah, I think we should stick with the facts and not try to read minds. That said, it doesn’t mean I give both Peter’s and John’s words equal weight. Looking at what’s known, which consists of what Peter and John have said, and filtering these things through the prism of logic, Peter’s story is far more credible.
Can you tell us what Byrne’s politics are? Can you show us where’s he’s publicly discussed them?
****
He;s pretty conservative on many issues, though he describes himself as a moderate Republican. He agrees a lot with Ronald Reagan but has called Nixon evil and has blasted GWB, at least indirectly, though not like PAD. He has also implied George H.W. Bush was something of a lightweight but pretty much disliked Clinton strongly. he is anti-religion and its influence in politics. He admits developing babies/fetuses are human life, but calls abortion justified homicide. (So he is pro=choice but unlike many pro-choices says it is human and life). He implied early on Iraq was something of a blunder and we didn’t learn from the past. On the other hand, he does advocate a strong and continuing military response after 9/11. “Show them what waging war with the United States really means.” He is anti-p.c. He seems to be less conservative on “values” issues then economic ones. He is pro-gay rights and marriage.
John never responded, which was cool. But then I noticed this gem in the FAQs section of Byrne Robotics: “…especially work which, like the FF, has taken on a legendary status far greater than its actually worth. (Second only to Lee and Kirby? Sure, if the space between is about 400 light years!)”
****
There’s something about his modesty that just feels like a put-on. It’s like he knows the right thing to say, so he not only says it, he piles on. “Look, look how modest I’m being… I’m so much more modest than anyone else in the industry.”
Yet, 20 minutes later, he’ll be playing “Spot The Mistake” with a page from a Kirby/Lee comic, in which he makes a big deal about a character’s dialogue being impossible because in the panel, he’s facing away from what he’s commenting on.
Isn’t Byrne one of those guys who insists that Blake wrote most of Shakespeare’s works?
Bill, I have a feeling you’re right. Maybe someone should get him in an anti-curmudgeon program.
spiderrob, thanks for the info on Byrne’s politics.
Alan
John Byrne believes that a guy named (I think) DeVere wrote Shakespeare’s works. He was the Earl of Oxford. If you have ever bought his Next Men, you’ll note that he credits any Shakespeare quotes that he uses to DeVere. I would guess that he has held that belief for some time as I recall instances of using Shakespeare quotes in Marvel books as far back as the early 80s but being coy about crediting them. I’d guess that he felt is dishonest to credit Shakespeare but couldn’t credit DeVere as that would never have flown in a book produced by Marvel. On Next Men, however, he was doing everything, so he could credit the man that he believed to have written it.
I remember thinking when Man of Steel came out that John’s reinterpretation of Superman’s powers seemed a lot like Alan Moore’s interpretation of Miracleman’s powers — we were told that the source of power for these flying strongmen was psionic in nature. John did the same thing in explaining Gladiator’s powers in the FF, which Moore’s Miracleman (which, forgive me, I prefer over calling “Marvelman,” because of the Elvis Costello song) also pre-dated.
I also noticed when Moore & Davis’s Captain Britain run was reprinted, the powers and death of Legion of the Special Executive matched the powers and death of Flashback of Omega Flight. Both could summon future versions of themselves to fight, and witnessed the deaths of their future selves in battle.
I hadn’t thought much of this since I read Kurt Vonnegut’s Sirens of Titan, and realized that Moore lifted the themes and conflicts of Watchmen from that book. (Sirens of Titan also seems to be the source for the template of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The first book came out when Adams was 7. The guide-like entries in both seem to be influenced by Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary.) There no longer seemed to be justification for any outrage for Moore’s sake when Moore benefitted so much from the work of another writer whose influence he has never acknowledged as far as I know.
John, however, has not only not acknowledged Moore’s influence on his work, he also includes Moore among his comic book contemporaries he bashes:
Yeah, when John Byrne does Superman, he does Superman. Except when it’s Miracleman.
Sweet Baby Jesus, just when I thought John couldn’t get more annoying, I read David’s report that John buys into the idea Shakespeare didn’t write what is attributed to him. My understanding is that the foundation of this belief lies in snobbery, that a man of Shakespeare’s limited education isn’t capable of what he’s been credited with. It’s the kind of snobbery that the French hold when they persist in their belief that a cancer survivor isn’t capable of beating their best cyclists time after time in spite of the evidence of their most severe scrutiny.
Sweet Baby Jesus, just when I thought John couldn’t get more annoying, I read David’s report that John buys into the idea Shakespeare didn’t write what is attributed to him. My understanding is that the foundation of this belief lies in snobbery, that a man of Shakespeare’s limited education isn’t capable of what he’s been credited with.
Actually, it’s a little known historical fact that the main reason Shakespeare is mistakenly credited with writing most of those plays is that he would regularly give away the endings at Ye Olde Convention.
In fact, there is something of a minor legend surrounding an incident when a playwright (whose name is lost to the sands of time) flew into a rage about the “spoiling” of Hamlet’s death after Shakespeare passed around a rough draft of King Lear.
-Rex Hondo-
“John Byrne believes that a guy named (I think) DeVere wrote Shakespeare’s works. He was the Earl of Oxford.”
That’s silly.
All the smart people know that Shakespeare’s works were written by Buddy Hackett.
(Guess the in-joke)
“Luigi Novi: I don’t recall Peter ever mentioning Byrne’s politics, nor do I know what Byrne’s politics are, aside from the fact that he’s Pro-Choice on abortion.”
I have no particular idea what John’s politics are.
Nor do I have any particular interest in being in one of Kevin’s movies. It has, literallly, never even occurred to me.
PAD
“Peter David got the names of all Marvel fans, personally called them and gave away the endings on all of John Byrne’s stories. “
Well, close. It’s actually a mailing list. Thankfully, it’ moved to e-mail in the last few years. It’s Peter’s top secret Spoiler Mailing. I’ve appreciated getting it for years.
“I read David’s report that John buys into the idea Shakespeare didn’t write what is attributed to him. My understanding is that the foundation of this belief lies in snobbery, that a man of Shakespeare’s limited education isn’t capable of what he’s been credited with.”
No, the foundation is that there’s very little evidence (and not any *hard* evidence) that the William Shaxper of Stratford is the same person as the William Shakespeare who authored the canon. (I know this is just a tangential point, but I’ve seen the “snobbery” ad hominem argument used before on this site, by PAD himself, and while it may be true of some anti-Stratfordians, it hardly characterizes all of them. It’s a simplification that allows people to tar all anti-Stratforidians with the same brush, and thus make it easier to write them off.)
And how much evidence is there, exactly, that Christopher Marlowe wrote the plays attributed to him? It’s not like there’s a huge database of biometric data on playwrights of 400 years ago, so we can compare fingerprints on original manuscripts or anything (for that matter, there are darn few original manuscripts)…
There comes a time when you just have to take the word of the people that were there, that William Shakespeare (Shaksper, Shakespere, Shakspre, et al) wrote the plays with his name attached. Just as we have to take the word of those who were involved in publishing them that John Byrne actually wrote all the comics that were attributed to him.
(Like how I brought that one back on-topic?) 🙂
Shakespeare was a klingon!
Why yes, once I lift the ad homnem bias from my eyes, I can see the spelling of “De Vere” is much closer to “Shakespeare” than “Shaxper.”
I always figured the most obvious answer was that Shakespeare basically had what we would nowadays call a studio. He had various collaborators who wrote various sections of various plays, and Shakespeare did some of the writing as well, and then was responsible for the final pass on the work. His name was the constant that went on it because it was more marketable to have plays by the single name of “William Shakespeare” rather than a host of shows by a variety of names.
Not too dissimilar from the way most TV shows are produced, when you get down to it. Look how Aaron Sorkin works. It’s mostly his name on the script, but he has a host of writers and researchers who are always providing material and ideas…including some ideas that he initially objected to (for instance, the second season episode where Bartlett and Abby were trying to carve some time out of their schedule to have sex for the first time in 14 weeks. Sorkin thought it was demeaning to the characters, but eventually changed his mind.)
Anyway, since there’s nothing new under the sun, why can’t we conjecture that the current method of churning out material largely attributed to one individual isn’t centuries old.
PAD
PAD
Shakespeare, the first show runner.
I had a high school English teacher who had his own hypothesis about how Shakespeare was able to be such a prolific writer. Said teacher posited that Shakespeare was an alien. As in an extraterrestrial.
Mind you, this was one of the best teachers I had had. He was smart, funny and I always looked forward to coming to his class and discussing literature.
Nevertheless, to this day I cannot be sure if he was joking or not.
Shakespeare, the first alien show runner. Which is not as much a contradiction in terms as you would think.
Why wouldn’t Shakespear be able to write all that? It’s not like he was watching lost and posting replys to internet blogs! 😉
He was too busy being heartsick over Gwyneth Paltrow
“Why yes, once I lift the ad homnem bias from my eyes, I can see the spelling of “De Vere” is much closer to “Shakespeare” than “Shaxper.””
Now you’re just replacing an ad hominem argument with a straw-man argument. But hey, this thread’s not really about the Shakespeare/de Vere controversy, so whatever.
Mike, if you’re really interested in the issue beyond being snarky and calling those who disagree with you snobs, this is an interesting link on the subject.
http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/
Not sure why Byrne is so upset–he kills off and resurrects characters so often I got bored with his work a long long time ago (and my first comic was Giant-Size X-Men #1)
Wanna know which death sticks with me the most? The murder of Jean DeWolfe. She wasn’t killed by a supervillian–just a guy in a ski mask and a shotgun…it was the first time a comic ever scared the sh*t out of me.
Thanks Peter.
P.S.–Just bought your Writing Comics book–read it cover to cover last night–could not put it down…called in sick today so’s I could get some sleep…gonna read it again this afternoon…
Jason, I don’t like George W Bush, but I don’t simply post the awolbush.com address everywhere and leave it at that to make my point. If there’a a non-snob point you want to make, don’t blame me just because it hasn’t been established.
If my arguments are simply ad hominem and straw man, why are you letting me clobber you with them? Where is your responsibility in making your point?
I don’t think this has been mentioned yet but on Monday, Denny O’Neil commented on the Alpha Flight matter on his message board.
“I’m sorry, guys. I can’t help clear up the disagreement between John Byrne and Peter David. The event in question happened so long ago–more than 20 years?-and was not as big in my life as in John’s and Peter’s. And my memory, which was always iffy, has gotten iffier since I took three big jolts of electricity four years ago. I do want to express my good wishes to Messrs. B and D. I consider both of them friends and greatly admire their creativity and professionalism.”
Someone could ask Denny O’Neil if he has any recollection of the policies at the and whether it is likely someone from Sales could make off with artwork without editorial approval. But it seems to me he’s just said all he is going to on the subject.
So with O’Neil’s comment it’s clearly all in the He-Said,-He-Said arena, will never be resolved conclusively and would best be just left to fade.
… recollection of the policies at the time and whether it is likely …
What’s clear is that John Byrne is no longer worth discussing. That has become evident in his latest dissertation in which he concluded that he was happy the Crocodile Hunter had been killed before he did more “damage” to his family. Oh, and that any astronauts who have families are irresponsible áššhølëš as well.
I remember years ago when Roger Zelazny died and some guy on the internet declared this was probably a good thing because, according to the fan, he hadn’t turned out any good fiction lately. It was the first time I saw a flamewar in action. No one took the guy’s side.
I very much doubt that I will be starting any further threads about him. I don’t rule it out…but anyone whose opinions are this over the top should be accorded the same level of respect of those guys who stand on street corners and shout their rants to passing crowds. I would just love to see John walk up to Irwin’s wife and explain to her what a good thing it is her husband, and the father of her children, is dead.
John Byrne shouldn’t be responded to. He should be shunned.
PAD
Now, you got it! Don’t pay the fool any mind.
Peter,
As one of the first to lash out at Byrne on that thread (I brought up astronauts as people who have dangerous jobs, among others)…
THANK YOU!!!
My whole argument has been:
Steve Irwin died, which had a profound effect on the fans of the world.
What he did 3 years ago with his baby, is irrelevant. What IF? the croc had eaten the baby…uh..it didn’t happen, and it will never be repeated.
So yeah, after 20+ years, my blinders are off, and I doubt I’ll ever be able to view the message and messenger as two different entities anymore.
So I’ll stick with his old stuff, since it was better. 🙂
I think you’re probably right, Peter; by discussing a person’s sometimes reality-challenged views, all we’re doing is giving that person an even wider audience than they originally had. I felt that way a couple of months ago when Ann Coulter was making headlines by insisting that 9/11 widows had profited from their husbands’ death. Of course she knew that her comments were going to enrage people, earning her book even more publicity and rocketing it to the top of the best-seller lists. And every time another left-wing commentator took her to task, she just smiled happily, knowing she just sold another thousand copies.
I just want to say Peter that i don’t question your version of the events because in the 3 years i’ve been visiting this site, if anything you’ve shown yourself to be an honest leftie :-)(that was made in jest, people).
By the way I was upset when i read WIZARD’s review of the FALLEN ANGEL trade. They gave it a C. now they should also be shunned.
Best
Joe V.
“By the way I was upset when i read WIZARD’s review of the FALLEN ANGEL trade. They gave it a C. now they should also be shunned.”
The first time, ever, that any mention of “Fallen Angel” (either DC or IDW) shows up in Wizard, and they dismiss it? Nice.
Happily the reviewer in Sunday’s Washington Post had a few more brain cells, giving it a B+.
PAD
I felt that way a couple of months ago when Ann Coulter was making headlines by insisting that 9/11 widows had profited from their husbands’ death.
****
To be fair, an episode of Law & Order said pretty much the same thing *before* Ann Coulter made her remarks. The episode centered around the now-rich 9/11 widows versus the financial problems encountered by 9/11 survivors.
????? Anyone who doesn’t like it doesn’t have more than a few brain cells? (Or was that comment directed at the magazine’s general feel of superficiality?)
Joe, what were the reasons the reviewer gave for his score?
Peter, do you have the links for the Steve Irwin and astronauts comments by Byrne?
Luigi:
http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=14104&PN=1&totPosts=455
“????? Anyone who doesn’t like it doesn’t have more than a few brain cells?”
I never said any such thing. I’m sure that someone who doesn’t like it has plenty of brain cells.
Just…not as many as someone who DOES like it…
PAD
>>”????? Anyone who doesn’t like it doesn’t have more than a few brain cells?”
>I never said any such thing. I’m sure that someone who doesn’t like it has plenty of brain cells.
>Just…not as many as someone who DOES like it…
>PAD
Hey! FA just never clicked for me, even after a few attempts at picking it up. I like your Marvel Adventures Spider-Man just fine!! 😉
To be fair, an episode of Law & Order said pretty much the same thing *before* Ann Coulter made her remarks. The episode centered around the now-rich 9/11 widows versus the financial problems encountered by 9/11 survivors.
To be completely fair, that episode was about a fireman who survived 9/11, collected disability and then left his first wife for a 9/11 widow who collected on a death benefit from the city. He was then murdered by his first wife.
It was a story about people who survived 9/11 who subsequently behaved badly. At no point, did they call any of the 9/11 widows “harpies” or “witches” because they disagreed with their politics.
“If my arguments are simply ad hominem and straw man, why are you letting me clobber you with them?”
Oh, is that what’s happening? Honestly, I just thought it was a fascinating website, and figured if you had any interest in the topic beyond being sarcastic you would click on it.
Here’s an answer to your specific points, and I’ll try not to get too long-winded (since, as I said already, this is a thread about John Byrne, not the Authorship question).
1.) The snobbery issue. You wrote that the anti-Stratfordians base their case on the notion “that a man of Shakespeare’s limited education isn’t capable of what he’s been credited with.”
While what you write isn’t wholly inaccurate, you couch it in terms that do indeed seem snobbish, so let me try to give a slightly broader context and hopefully it won’t seem like just semantic hairsplitting.
First of all, it’s not “limited education” in the sense of, “That guy was too dumb to write so smart!” It’s more like, look, writing is a learned skill, like anything else. Yes, there is the ineffable quality that is one’s innate talent, but there are also formal elements involved in writing a play, and where did he learn these? It’s not a snobbish question, it’s simply flagging up the curiosity.
The second point is that the lack of formal education is simply one oddity when you look at the authorship question. There is also life experience. What in the life of the Stratfordian Shaksper contributed to what is in his plays? This is another area where it’s easy to read “snobbery” where none exists, because anti-Stratfordians will couch their premise in terms of, Shaksper of Stratford was of the lower classes, yet many of his plays were detailed observations about upper class life. The mention of “class” can sound a bit loaded, but it’s really just a question of logic. Writers write from experience, and a lot of the Shakespeare canon reads like the work of someone who had experienced an upper class life.
I should clarify at this point that I’m not trying to outline the total case here, but rather just touching on those points that have led to the “snobbery” charge, and why it seems like it’s a “snobby” attitude, when that’s not quite what’s happening.
To come totally clean, I actually find myself faling into the ad hominem trap myself, because I’ve come across plenty of Stratfordian snobs in my day, and it makes me a little frustrated. It’s easy to see the other side as being a little full of themselves. (Your line about “De Vere” being much closer than “Shaksper” struck me as a little haughty, for example.)
The people who hold the orthodox view of authorship can be a little proud of their mastery of the orthodox view. They’ll talk about Shakespeare wrote this play before writing that play, and how you can see the development of this particular thread… But, when you’ve read about this subject in books, or in what’s written on the webpage I tried to link you to, you realize, the whole Shakespeare chronology is all made up. It’s an educated guess, mind you, but it’s a guess. I see that happening, and it annoys me. I don’t like how all the mysteries surrounding the authorship question are swept under the carpet when an orthodox Stratfordian is leading the debate.
Sorry, I digressed.
Now, to answer your other point about how “DeVere” is even further from “Shakespeare” than “Shaksper,” well … first of all, my using the most common spelling of the Stratford man’s name was not offered up as any kind of evidence, it was simply tangential, and a way to distinguish the man from Stratford from the author of the canon (helpful if you’re going to argue that they are two different people).
But the logical steps missing, from an anti-Stratfordian’s view, are simply:
a.) “William Shakespeare” is a pseudonym.
b.) We don’t believe that William Shaksper is the author of the canon, therefore
c.) Someone else is, and since we presume (a) to be true, then
d.) That someone’s name could by anything.
e.) Of all the candidates, the strongest contender is Edward DeVere, Earl of Oxford.
The actual detailed reasons why DeVere is a possibility are really fascinating. Again, this is why I posted the link. There’s so much interesting stuff, and I didn’t think I could do it justice.
That said, even John Byrne has noted that while DeVere is more likely a candidate than Shaksper, there is a likelier candidate even than DeVere, and that is: Someone we’ve not yet heard of.
This is where the Oxfordians (some of them anyway) lose some ground, in my opinion, because their arguments occasionally lose sight of the fact that there is no evidence in favor of DeVere either.
The important point, to me, is that the evidence in favor of the Stratford man being the author is very shabby, and there are a lot of logical arguments against him being the author. There’s simply nothing in the way of hard evidence to prove that he was the guy.
From there, it becomes fun to conjecture, “Well, if it wasn’t him, who was it?” But sometimes it can be easy in the conjecturing to lose sight of the fact that, whoever we pick, the evidence in his favor will be just as nonexistent/circumstantial as what we have for Shaksper.
So, the Oxfordians are probably not entirely free of sin. I don’t know.
I don’t know, Mike, how satisfying you’ll find the above. I know I only went into sketchy outlines of the Oxfordian premise. But, honestly, it was never my intention to mount a full-on anti-Stratfordian argument. I just wanted to flag up the unfairness of dismissing the whole movement with the use of the single word “snobbery.” It strikes me as unfair.
To be perfectly honest, I wish I knew more about it. There are *lots* of facets to this question, and I can only claim to be familiar with a few, at best. Hopefully this suffices for the moment.
Otherwise I guess I’ll just continue to go through life a clobbered snob.
Jason
Jason,
I don’t think people were that uptight over standardized name-spelling only 100+ years after Guttenberg. My mother, for example, has her name registered to different government agencies under different spellings. We who were educated in the US take this for granted, but to her the mess of the inconsistent spelling of her name wasn’t such a big deal for the last third of the 20th century she’s lived here. The different spellings of Shakespeare’s name seems more likely to be casualness rather than conspiracy.
As for “detailed observations about upper class life,” my understanding is also that playwrights of that time ripped each other off at every opportunity. The stories were credited not to who introduced their concepts but to those who presented them best. The taboo against plagerism had to be introduced. Peter suggested Shakespeare could have run a shop of writers. I don’t think he needed to go that far.
“Hey! FA just never clicked for me, even after a few attempts at picking it up. I like your Marvel Adventures Spider-Man just fine!! ;)”
That’s okay. I mean, it’s, y’know, genetics. I suppose even one brain cell too little means you don’t really appreciate “Fallen Angel.” There’s no shame to that. It’s what nature dealt out, and certainly I understand that it’s still possible to live a rich, full life without the brain cells required to enjoy “Fallen Angel.” Granted, it’s not AS fulfilling a life, but go argue with DNA.
PAD
Ironically, you only need half the number of brain cells to enjoy Soulsearchers.
(cricket chirping)
Because, um, it’s bimonthly.
I’ve been thinking about it, and what it really comes down to is that John is a control freak. Now that’s not out of the ordinary for a writer. After all, our job entails creating entire worlds that we control. But John’s pathology has taken it to an unhealthy level. He will never wander out of the Byrne board, wher he has complete control, can shut down threads he doesn’t like, and has a coterie of followers to run interference. He does almost no conventions. He is unable to admit when he is wrong. Recently he attempted to post an apology to Kyle Baker because he’d made some snotty comments about him, resulting from another Kyle Baker–no relation–who had posted on the board. But in so doing he completely distorted the sequence of events, insinuating that the poster had delayed in confirming that he was no relation to the writer/artist…when in fact the poster clarified it in short order and John just flat-out missed it. Even in acknowledging a misstep, he had to blame someone else.
It’s really sad.
PAD
As for “detailed observations about upper class life,” my understanding is also that playwrights of that time ripped each other off at every opportunity.
True. And keep in mind that a lot of his plays were based on earlier plays and stories. Romeo and Juliet, for example, was based on a Greek tragedy. Writers “borrowed” from each other all the time. Which makes me wonder how Harlan Ellison would have felt living during the Elizabethan period.
Also, as poet, Shakespeare (whoever he really was) likely had wealthy patrons bankrolling him. Even some pretty powerful ones. Many scholars believe that the positive portrayal of Banquo in Macbeth was an obvious effort to suck up to his descendent, the newly crowned King James I of England. So, even if he was not born of the upper class, he likely had plenty of opportunities to observe upper class life. Therefore, I don’t think the “he was born in a lower class” by itself is enough to dismiss the man from Statford as the author of all of those plays.
Regarding Shakespeare, I read what I felt was a very good biography of the man last summer. It’s called “Will in the World. How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare” by Stephen Greenblatt.
Rick
“The different spellings of Shakespeare’s name seems more likely to be casualness rather than conspiracy.”
Forgive me, Mike, but I’m really starting to think you’re not really reading what I’m writing. Or perhaps I’m just not being clear.
Where exactly did “conspiracy” come up? I said that I used the “Shaksper” spelling because it was an efficient way of distinguishing the man from Stratford from the author of the canon — as that is helpful when you’re going to discuss the theory that they were not the same man. I never said it was any kind of proof that they weren’t the same man, or that the different spellings were “conspiracy.”
As for whether William Shakespeare wrote from experience or he was just ripping off other playwrights, well … as I said, there’s no hard evidence for either theory. And that’s my point: It’s all conjecture. But the orthodox view of authorship will present such theories as cold, hard fact. And that’s what’s frustrating.