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The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

theatlantic.com

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Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#21

Post by jonstewart »

jonstewart wrote: post #19

But as the article alludes, questions of authorship are dismissed by overwhelming consensus. It is also a question for which the sort of conclusive evidence that’s desired just doesn’t exist. In some sense, it’s analogous to climate change denialist articles. So, it’s nice to learn more about Emilia Bassano. But it’s a problematic article, and, especially, your defense of it seems problematic. It almost detracts from…

I will assume the downvotes are from those dastardly Oxfordians, so comfortable in the shadows...

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#22

Post by dang »

pacala wrote: post #20
dang wrote: post #6

All: yes it's a provocative title and the topic has been overcooked over the years, but on HN what matters is the article. This article is interesting and perfectly on topic for HN. Most of us have never heard of Emilia Bassano. There's a great Borges quote. And so on. Comments are welcome if your curiosity is engaged. But if you're triggered, and want to vent, that's not curiosity. Let it go and move to something yo…

I've flagged the piece as wild speculation. Baffled what part of the article stimulated your intellectual curiosity. Remarkably, the article itself rests the case of relationship between Shakespeare's plays and the respective lady, as well as the the motivations of the author, in two phrases out of the hundreds meandering mostly around the subject. To save everyone else's time: > Her writing style bears no obvious re…

Curiosity and speculation are compatible. The spirit that would banish speculation, not so much.

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#23

Post by klyrs »

dang wrote: post #6

All: yes it's a provocative title and the topic has been overcooked over the years, but on HN what matters is the article. This article is interesting and perfectly on topic for HN. Most of us have never heard of Emilia Bassano. There's a great Borges quote. And so on. Comments are welcome if your curiosity is engaged. But if you're triggered, and want to vent, that's not curiosity. Let it go and move to something yo…

> Accounts that flag too many on-topic articles like this one eventually get their flagging privileges removed.

Any chance we could get an 'unflag' option? I've accidentally flagged at least one article...

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#24

Post by mythrwy »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #8
dang wrote: post #6

All: yes it's a provocative title and the topic has been overcooked over the years, but on HN what matters is the article. This article is interesting and perfectly on topic for HN. Most of us have never heard of Emilia Bassano. There's a great Borges quote. And so on. Comments are welcome if your curiosity is engaged. But if you're triggered, and want to vent, that's not curiosity. Let it go and move to something yo…

Flagging an obviously on-topic article Obviously on topic? Really? You can dictate it is on topic because you have power to, but it is petty to threaten people for flagging when it is clearly not obvious it is on topic.

"Clearly not obvious it is not topic"?

A perfectly valid opinion, but it's manifestly not clearly not obvious it is on topic.

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#25

Post by pacala »

dang wrote: post #22
pacala wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've flagged the piece as wild speculation. Baffled what part of the article stimulated your intellectual curiosity. Remarkably, the article itself rests the case of relationship between Shakespeare's plays and the respective lady, as well as the the motivations of the author, in two phrases out of the hundreds meandering mostly around the subject. To save everyone else's time: > Her writing style bears no obvious re…

Curiosity and speculation are compatible. The spirit that would banish speculation, not so much.

What about pieces that are written with a not-so-subtle ideological axe to grind? Let's take fundamentalist Christianity, for example https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/humans/wheres-the-evi.... Would that qualify as "intellectual curiosity"? As far as I can tell, OP is the same genre of wild speculation, only written from a fundamentalist feminist perspective.

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#26

Post by dang »

pacala wrote: post #25
dang wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curiosity and speculation are compatible. The spirit that would banish speculation, not so much.

What about pieces that are written with a not-so-subtle ideological axe to grind? Let's take fundamentalist Christianity, for example https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/humans/wheres-the-evi... . Would that qualify as "intellectual curiosity"? As far as I can tell, OP is the same genre of wild speculation, only written from a fundamentalist feminist perspective.

Good question. Ideological axe-grinding leads to predictable arguments in which people have nothing new to say and merely flame each other. That very much destroys the curious spirit, so from an HN point of view—totally different. We moderate all that heavily, since otherwise flamewars would consume the site. If you want to see how heavily, check out how tedious it is: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

I don't think you're characterizing this article fairly at all. The quote you cherry-picked earlier made it sound much dumber than it is (I actually objected to that earlier but decided to let it go) and "fundamentalist feminist" seems to me way off base. Are you sure it's just "speculation" that you're upset about? To me it feels more likely to be about the ideological vibes the article could possibly be giving off, or the buttons it could be pushing. I say that without judgment; it's understandable if so; but in that case we're simply not talking about curiosity. I don't get the impression that the author is grinding an axe. She just went down a rabbit hole that surprised her, and dug up a lot of interesting information along the way. Sure it's speculation, but it's an interesting ride. If you don't enjoy that ride, others are not far away.

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#27

Post by pacala »

dang wrote: post #26
pacala wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about pieces that are written with a not-so-subtle ideological axe to grind? Let's take fundamentalist Christianity, for example https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/humans/wheres-the-evi... . Would that qualify as "intellectual curiosity"? As far as I can tell, OP is the same genre of wild speculation, only written from a fundamentalist feminist perspective.

Good question. Ideological axe-grinding leads to predictable arguments in which people have nothing new to say and merely flame each other. That very much destroys the curious spirit, so from an HN point of view—totally different. We moderate all that heavily, since otherwise flamewars would consume the site. If you want to see how heavily, check out how tedious it is: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=al…

Synopsis of the article:

- First half: Shakespeare didn't write the plays himself.

- Second half: Life of Emilia Bassano, and "traces" thereof in some of Shakespeare's work, as narrated by "Emilia Bassano’s most ardent champion" John Hudson.

In all honesty, the only quote I could find that attempts to substantiate the claim of Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare, about 3/4 in the piece, is the one I quoted. The claim doesn't stand on its face, as she's a published author and her style doesn't match Shakespeare's work. Case closed.

If you have another quote that substantiates the claim in the title, would you please share it, instead of engaging in threats and personal attacks?

Edit: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. As far as my reading comprehension goes, a conservative interpretation of the evidence in the article supports at best "Emilia Bassano inspired some of Shakespeare's work". I can't explain the jump to "Emilia Bassano wrote all of Shakespeare's work", maybe you can help. Going with the conservative interpretation, the article seems better fit for the Literary Review magazine.

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#28

Post by andrewflnr »

klyrs wrote: post #23
dang wrote: post #6

All: yes it's a provocative title and the topic has been overcooked over the years, but on HN what matters is the article. This article is interesting and perfectly on topic for HN. Most of us have never heard of Emilia Bassano. There's a great Borges quote. And so on. Comments are welcome if your curiosity is engaged. But if you're triggered, and want to vent, that's not curiosity. Let it go and move to something yo…

> Accounts that flag too many on-topic articles like this one eventually get their flagging privileges removed. Any chance we could get an 'unflag' option? I've accidentally flagged at least one article...

There is one? At least, I remember accidentally flagging a bunch of stuff and fixing it.

Ed: just checked in case I was crazy. The flag link turns into an unflag link once the page reloads.

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#29

Post by dang »

pacala wrote: post #27
dang wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question. Ideological axe-grinding leads to predictable arguments in which people have nothing new to say and merely flame each other. That very much destroys the curious spirit, so from an HN point of view—totally different. We moderate all that heavily, since otherwise flamewars would consume the site. If you want to see how heavily, check out how tedious it is: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=al…

Synopsis of the article: - First half: Shakespeare didn't write the plays himself. - Second half: Life of Emilia Bassano, and "traces" thereof in some of Shakespeare's work, as narrated by "Emilia Bassano’s most ardent champion" John Hudson. In all honesty, the only quote I could find that attempts to substantiate the claim of Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare, about 3/4 in the piece, is the one I quoted. The claim doesn…

You're treating the article as if it's claiming proof when it's really just exploring a question. Is that really so hard to see? or so bad?

A literary review article is perfectly welcome on HN if it's interesting and curious. We could use more of those.

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