humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare

Paul Crowley wrote:
>
> Peter Farey wrote:
>
> [..]
> > 1) As in the case of the inscription on the monument, I
> > show that it is not only *possible* to read it in a
> > different way, but that the odds against that *poss-
> > ibility* having happened by chance are so huge that
> > it must have been done deliberately.
>
> It is easy to explain anything in a way
> which is possible. The issue is whether
> or not it is reasonable.

What is tragic is that you are unable to enjoy - as the
rest of us do - the wonderful irony of you saying this.

> We might explain
> (say) the assasination of JFK by pointing
> to the positions of the moon and planets
> at the time. The odds against the moon
> and planets being in those positions at
> any particular time will always be in the
> order of billions to one against.
>
> We could then say it must have been
> deliberate, and God (or some other entity)
> must have intended it so.

And we might thereby demonstrate that yet again you
haven't got the slightest idea what you are talking
about. A proper analogy for what I am saying would be
that some such 'rare' celestial phenomenon was found
to have happened not only at JFK's assassination
but at RFK's too. High odds become significant only
in the comparison of two or more sets of data.

> > 2) As in the case of the Sonnets quotations, I show that
> > once any basic assumptions about the authorship are
> > removed, the words as used at that time, and the
> > grammar employed, do actually point to a different
> > person, and circumstances which an exiled Marlowe
> > would have experienced.
>
> I'm lucky. I have never wasted any
> time reading this 'explanation'.

Never mind, you wouldn't have understood it anyway.

> > 3) As in the case of the First Folio quotations, I show
> > that the words presented by Stratfordians as proof
> > that their man wrote the works *can* in fact be read
> > in a way which does no such thing, and that they
> > could just as easily have been written in a deliber-
> > ately ambiguous way to put us off the scent.
>
> This sounds more reasonable. Maybe
> you have shown that the words can be
> seen as systematically ambiguous, and
> that such ambiguity cannot be read into
> other roughly comparable texts, and
> must therefore be present.

No, Paul, this is of course the pseudo-logical approach
that you employ, based upon your fond belief that those
who reject your eisegeses would, if they could, waste
their time trying to do what you have done with the
Sonnets, assuming the same scenario but using different
texts. Dream on, Paul, you're not worth it.

For this particular argument of mine (countering the
Stratfordian claim that certain phrases make it certain
that, for example, Jonson was addressing William Shake-
speare of Stratford and nobody else) simply pointing out
the existence of other possible meanings is sufficient.


Peter F.