Was Shakespeare a Woman?

[JSngry]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/who-is-shakespeare-emilia-bassano/588076/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

I have no opinion, but the "identity debate" around Shakespeare is always entertaining for me.

Enjoy!

[Brad]

It’s all speculation and since there is no definitive proof that Shakespeare didn’t write his plays, sonnets, etc., William Shakespeare is presumed to be the author. 

It reminds me of the debate around the Iliad and the Odyssey. There is no consensus that there was really a Homer as performers would travel from town to town telling great feats. However, absent proof, the writer is presumed to be Homer. 

Thanks for posting the article.  

[porcy62]

I was always much more fascinated by what "Shakespeare" wrote rather then who he/she/it was.

[danasgoodstuff]

6 hours ago, porcy62 said:

I was always much more fascinated by what "Shakespeare" wrote rather then who he/she/it was.

Yes S. is the person who wrote the plys & 'the play's the thing'.

[T.D.]

I once read a fair amount of "real Shakespeare" theorizing - de Vere, Marlowe, etc. A few years ago, someone recommended I read Will in the World.

I got about halfway through the book (which does not iirc advance alternate identity theories), thought it was clever enough but nothing more than speculation, and vowed to read no more historical speculation re. WS. Thanks for the link, but no time for this latest.

[Added] Despite the fact that we'll never have real proof, I believe the identity speculation can be enjoyable in its own right for lifetime Shakespeare aficionados with whom all the textual allusions and linkages immediately resonate. But I lack that degree of erudition.

Edited May 11, 2019 by T.D.

[Shrdlu]

Old Billy was, of course, a man.

A few years ago, some people decided to estimate the I.Q.s of some famous historical figures, including Mr Shakspere. They couldn't ask him to do a test, with those "Which geometrical figure is the odd one out?" and "What is the next number in this sequence?" questions. He wasn't free that day, to take the test. They devised some criteria for estimation. Anyway, they scored the dude at 200 and I buy that. (I forget the estimates for Ike Newton and Al Einstein and others, but I think they were less than that for Billy.)

The live I.Q. tests they use are not necessarily very accurate. In my own case, I used to be a Math professor, so I already know the answers to those questions such as "What comes after 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, ... ?", so I have an unfair advantage.

Here is a question that was thrown by a grade school teacher at Karl Gauss (mathematical physicist). He was bored by the lesson (who wouldn't be, in a grade school?) and was looking out the window. The teacher told him to add up all the whole numbers (integers) from 1 to 100. Quick as a flash, he said 5050. That is real genius. I have had time to look into it, so I know how he did it, but he figured it out for the first time, on the spot.

[Serioza]

don't think  Shakespire was woman or russian or both, but the version that he was cover for several poets  from nobility looks interesting...

Edited June 19, 2021 by Serioza