Virtual Grub Street: Herdin’ All the Shakespeare Cats and Kitties! With Ulysses and Agamemnon Epilogue!

Now you see in Hip Talk, they call William Shakespeare, “Willie the Shake!” You know why they call him “Willie the Shake”? Because HE SHOOK EVERYBODY!!” They gave this Cat five cents worth of ink, and a nickle’s worth of paper, and he sat down and wrote up such a breeze, WHAMMMMM!!! Everybody got off! Period! He was a hard, tight, tough Cat, Pen in hand, he was a Mother Superior.

Hipsters, Flipsters, and Finger-Poppin’ Daddies,

Knock me your lobes!

Lord Buckley reads Shakespeare.

Well now, the Edward de Vere was Shakespeare Group [Link] seems to have livened up. Surely it is understandable that I might find the fact pleasing. I use the word “might” advisedly, however.

Definitely on the pleasing side of the equation, the Oxfraudians who have sought to engage alternative authorship types in this public forum have done so largely without ad hominem attack. I hope we will all strive to do away with it altogether here.

Because I am not able to read each post and comment as it goes up, I hope that the members will use the “report post/comment to group admins” feature to bring to my attention anything I should see as quickly as possible. For my part, I will try to use the admin tools sparingly in order to head off troubles at the pass.

Members may have noticed that I have stood quietly by while myself a target of ferocious ad hominem attacks. I hope you will understand if I vigorously police such behavior toward others but sometimes choose to permit it toward myself.

1) I have no time to dignify trash talking with a response. A proper time will come for rational reply. At a given moment, you may assume I have more important matters to attend.

2) I hope that an attacker’s commentary reveals his or her lack of knowledge and concomitant strategy to make the prospect of the slightest criticism daunting.

But it is a lesson that I cannot choose to provide at anyone else’s expense. Please do not try such tactics against others and then feel mistreated because you have been sanctioned.

And do not assume that I will necessarily allow ad hominem against myself on any given occasion. You might find yourself crying out “Selective adjudication!” to no one as you are suspended without discussion or worse.

Civility is still strictly required in my groups.

While I’m on the subject, I will take a moment to reply to R.L. who assures us by his perfect certainty that he is supremely knowledgeable in all matters upon which he feels compelled to pronounce. Regarding my edition of Edward de Vere’s Ulysses and Agamemnon (1584) [link], he favors us with that knowledge, so perfect on this particular occasion that CAPS LOCK was engaged: “Ulysses and Agamemenon was NEVER published, so it is IMPOSSIBLE to compare the title to any other play.”

It has been postulated for centuries now that the play Troilus and Cressida is composed, in fact, of two plays. The portion about the Greek Camp displays the characteristics of plays written before the late-1580s. The love story between Troilus and Cressida and portions of the scenes featuring Hector, on the other hand, display the characteristics circa 1599 when the play as we know it came into existence.

In my Variorum Edition of Ulysses and Agamemnon (1584), I provide footnotes and appendices on a wide range of topics relating to the original play. Many are taken from editions of Troilus & Cressida which address the embedded “old play”. Many are taken from studies of the sources for the old play that are not shared by T&C, the metrical patterns that mark out each from the other, etc. Many of my own comments are about not only each of these categories but about the references to the Court politics of the mid-1580s.

I provide a sample, here, relating to the old play about Ulysses, Agamemnon and Achilles.

Stokes, vii – viii.] Has our author taken as the foundation of his drama some older play? Has he, by the magic touch of his genius and sympathy, kindled into life and beauty and refinement some old and rude drama? There is not in this case, as in some others, any direct and external evidence of such adaptation; but there are certain indications which make it not at all improbable. "The Wondrous Tale of Troy" had indeed been familiar to English listeners and readers from the very dawn of our literature.

Stokes, x.] It has often been remarked that passages and even scenes in Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," as printed in the Quarto and the Folio, seem to be boulders from an older drama embedded in the newer and more celebrated formation.

Rolfe, 21 citing Verplank] Another set of English commentators, from Steevens to Seymour, have satisfied themselves that Shakespeare's genius and taste had been expended in improving the work of an inferior author, whose poorer groundwork still appeared through his more precious decorations.

The inferior author was Shakespeare circa 1584. Close examination reveals that the Greek Camp section is indeed a shorter standalone play of earlier provenance. The quarto version of Troilus and Cressida includes the play nearly unchanged except that its original prose text has been broken into ragged iambic pentameter lines unusually irregular for a play by Shakespeare. Clearly little time or effort went into the task.

The sources for the Greek Camp portion are also entirely different from those for the 1599 additions. One, in particular, was being ridiculed, in London literary circles, in 1584, the date that Edward de Vere’s Ulysses and Agamemnon was performed before the Royal Court. Another was hand copied for recitation in the Court of Henry II of England. Many others each have their own fascinating history.