Shakespeare: The Value of the Fiction

Greetings,

There has been a great question which has caused some consternation over several years as to the identity of the writer of Shakespeare's works. This entry in the blog is not designed to give an answer to this particular riddle, or even give my own particular thoughts on the matter. What will be laid before you is approaching this question from a different point of view.

One of the first accusations with regard to Shakespeare's works is whether or not it was written by one man, or whether it was written by many writers, resulting in the question of whether it is "Shakespeare's English" or "Shakespeares' English". This is a question which historians and many others have argued. If it was written by one man, then he is truly a great man and has given us a great wealth of works. But, even if it was written by multiple authors, the result may be spread over several but still there is a lot of information and value to be gained from the works as they are.

Assuming that the works were all written by one man, the question of the man is one which has also appeared as voraciously as the question of whether it was one or several authors. Was it the son of a glove-maker from Stratford-Upon-Avon or was it Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford? These are the two great contenders for the authorship. Evidence has been presented from both points of view supporting both men. Once again, regardless of which one of these men wrote the works, the result is the same.

In essence it does not matter whether it was one author or several, the son of a glove-maker or an Earl which wrote "The works of Shakespeare", the true value is found in the volume of the work produced and in the works themselves. The plays give us many things which need to be appreciated for what they are rather than who put pen and ink to paper to produce them. The increased lexicon as a result of Shakespeare's works is of great significance as has been indicated previously. Expressions of language found in Shakespeare's works are still found in film, and even everyday speech. In close examination of the plays we find demonstrations of other cultures of the period, specifically the Italian which gives us an insight as to how society worked in that period in that culture. Even in general examination of the historical plays we find elements of the social and political workings of the day that they were written and also a perspective of historical events. All of these elements are of great use to us in the modern era.

For the most part, the question of the authorship of "The Works of Shakespeare" is more of an historical argument more designed for those who want specific answers about specific things. Regardless of who wrote the works the impact of them upon the English language and indeed the culture of English-speaking people far outweighs any argument as to the authorship of the works themselves. Indeed even if it is found that the works were not written by the son of a glove-maker from Stratford-Upon-Avon, there is still much value to be found in the fiction, and more to the point much value to be found in the works themselves.

Cheers,

Henry.

P.S. For all of my regular readers, the production continues. Slowly, but it does continue.

Production Commenced!

Greetings,

I have been going on with this research now for about 3 years, and for the most part, to this current date, the research has come to an end. What does this mean? No more blogs? End of the series? No actually, I think that there will be more blogs in this series as I continue to learn more about the language. For me it means something much bigger.

The bigger thing is that I have started production of my "period" manual. This is a manual based on my own acquired fencing knowledge, written in Present Day English (PDE) and then "translated" into Elizabethan English (EE). The reason for this project has already been discussed in some of my earliest posts on this blog, however, it could be useful to give a reminder.

One of the things that I have noticed studying Historical European Martial Arts is that there are a lot of practitioners who, especially in their earlier years, are afraid of going near sources of the period they are studying. For the most part this is due to fear of the language and the differences, this is even the case when discussing those manuals which are written in English, admittedly earlier versions, but still English. This project was designed to address at least part of that problem.

There are three significant treatises which were written in the 1590s: Vincentio Saviolo's (1595) His Practice in Two Books, Giacomo di Grassi's (1594) His True Arte of Defence and finally George Silver's (1599) Paradoxes of Defense. Interestingly these are written in EE, but English nonetheless. My choice was to examine EE of the 1590's in order that I could understand these manuals better, as a result "translate" a manual from PDE to EE and present them side-by-side in order that the EE may be more accessible due to the lack of "noise" between the two manuals.

"Noise" is what happens when something is translated from one language to another, and across a time period does count. This is because the person in the modern period who is translating the older text is not the author and as such does not know exactly what the author's intent was in the writing. This results in "noise" which can reduce understanding of the original and result in misinterpretations of the intent of the original author. By writing both of the manuals it is my intent to reduce this "noise" as much as I can.

I expect that this project will take some time to complete. There will no doubt be updates, and possibly even a preview of my work presented here, for those who are interested. I am expecting at least two versions if not more in order to get this as correct as I can. I am also expecting quite a few bumps and blocks in the process of this production, but I feel that the end result will be worth the effort put in.

Cheers,

Henry.