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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

#31

Post by dnr »

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…

I have no dog in this fight but that is a very uncharitable "synopsis". The main argument that I took away is that the plays contain many references to things (foreign cultures, social customs, musical instruments, etc.) that Shakespeare had no way of being exposed to, based on what we know of his life, but this woman's background did expose her to all these things, and she ran in the same circles at the same time (enough so that she could have been his lover). The secondary argument is the feminist content. It's all obviously very circumstantial and doesn't constitute "proof", but it's highly unlikely we'll ever get any actual proof after five hundred years of digging into the limited evidence from the time. The point is it's interesting to consider, and might make you think differently about the context and content of his (or her) work.

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#32

Post by fzeroracer »

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…

This is far from a charitable interpretation of the article and to me it seems rather ironic that you would claim Dang is threatening you and engaging in personal attacks when you seem to handwave the article away by attacking the author with an underpinning of claiming they have an ideological axe to grind.

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#33

Post by Tycho »

The far more likely explanation for all the evidence cited in the article is that Shakespeare got to know many interesting people who could tell him about faraway lands and aristocratic life, which fed into the settings of his plays, and Bassano was one of those acquaintances.

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#34

Post by ErotemeObelus »

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…

So truth is not part of the Hacker News guidelines.

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#35

Post by hulahoof »

dnr wrote: post #31
pacala wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have no dog in this fight but that is a very uncharitable "synopsis". The main argument that I took away is that the plays contain many references to things (foreign cultures, social customs, musical instruments, etc.) that Shakespeare had no way of being exposed to, based on what we know of his life, but this woman's background did expose her to all these things, and she ran in the same circles at the same time (e…

If they ran in the same circles and exchanged ideas, wouldn't that be exposure to the references of things that Shakespeare didn't have first-hand experience with ?

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#36

Post by JohnHud »

This is a short article by a journalist. It attempts to summarize my long academic book Shakespeare's Dark Lady; Amelia Bassano Lanier, The Woman behind Shakespeare's Plays? This is not a new subject. I announced it at the Washington Shakespeare Festival at the Smithsonian around 2007, and published an article on it as a new paradigm in 2009.I welcome an informed debate, but the best place to start is to become familiar with the book, then to discuss with me the additional unpublished research.

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#38

Post by klyrs »

andrewflnr wrote: post #28
klyrs wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

... ok weird I guess I failed to reload, thanks for checking

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#39

Post by pacala »

dang wrote: post #29
pacala wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're absolutely right. I expect[ed] articles on HN to make a credible attempt at being true, ideally independently verifiably so. "Did Emilia Bassano ghost-write Shakespeare works? Most likely not." would be a slightly more intellectually honest presentation, given the extraordinarity of the claim, the paucity of positive evidence, the presence of negative evidence, and it being 1 out of 66 other competing claims at being Shakespeare [0]. Leaving one more quote from article, re: the rabbit hole the author just happened to stumble into out of intellectual curiosity.

> What would the revelation of a woman’s hand at work mean, aside from the loss of a prime tourist attraction in Stratford-upon-Avon? Would the effect be a blow to the cultural patriarchy, or the erosion of the canon’s status? Would (male) myths of inexplicable genius take a hit? Would women at last claim their rightful authority as historical and intellectual forces?

[0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/amelia-bassano-william-sha...

Re: The case for Emilia Bassano as Shakespeare

#40

Post by dnr »

hulahoof wrote: post #35
dnr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no dog in this fight but that is a very uncharitable "synopsis". The main argument that I took away is that the plays contain many references to things (foreign cultures, social customs, musical instruments, etc.) that Shakespeare had no way of being exposed to, based on what we know of his life, but this woman's background did expose her to all these things, and she ran in the same circles at the same time (e…

If they ran in the same circles and exchanged ideas, wouldn't that be exposure to the references of things that Shakespeare didn't have first-hand experience with ?

That's addressed in the article:

  Could the plays’ many connections to Bassano be explained by simply
  assuming the playwright knew her well? “Shakespeare would have had 
  to run to her every few minutes for a musical reference or an 
  Italian pun,” he said.
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