This year's winning essay is "The Marlowe-Shakespeare authorship debate: approaching an old problem with new methods," by Ary Goldberger MD, Albert Yang MD and CK Peng Phd.

Google Search: Weir Bacon poet group:humanities.lit.authors.*

Google Search: Weir Bacon poet group:humanities.lit.authors.*: "Was Bacon capable of writing with 'drama and intensity?'"

Today I put my foot back in the water (if not in my mouth) at HLAS, with a post to Elizabeth Weir, the industrious Baconian, who must have thousands of posts to HLAS by now. In the past, I've chided her for ducking my questions re: Francis Bacon and ignoring evidence for Marlowe. In my latest post, I ask her to offer any facts she has that Bacon was a poet. If she's already posted it, she may be put off by my laziness, so I should look for evidence myself.

M.B. Malyutov has written Fusion of Various Methods for Resolving the Shakespeare Controversy. Documentary and literary evidence on the authorship attribution of works traditionally ascribed to Shakespeare is complemented by several micro-style, macro-style tests and a study of the validity of anagrams deciphered in the Shakespearean canon.

Roberta Ballantine calls it "the first truly scholarly treatment of different viable approaches to the problem--a study worth wide distribution." Also available as PDF file

Marlowe in Modern Fiction

N.M. Re-Opens Case of Billy the Kid

I pointed out in the Marlovian newsletter months ago that Ben Jonson's Invitation to a Grave Friend (quoted in Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac - DECEMBER 22 - 28, 2003) refers to thought-to-be-dead Marlowe.

The Great Idiot Debate

I've just been rereading previous posts in this thread and so much was concerned with Neil Brennen, who seems to have dropped his earlier pseudonym, and I had hoped to drop him as a topic, but after many weeks, checking in at HLAS to see how a new Baconian friend was faring there, I found that Brennen's venom continued dripping. Must I stomp on his head?

"Neil Brennen" wrote in message news:...
> > > "Christine Cooper" wrote in message
> > > news:45b7371d.0312232333.e4f9648@posting.google.com...

> > > > Dave More said to tell you guys hi!
> > >
> > > That's enough reason to dismiss this post as twaddle.
> >
> > ++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >
> > Does that mean you agree that Will Shakspere was an illiterate country
> bumpkin?
>
> No, it means I consider David More an idiot, and that you suffer from guilt
> by association.

You see? So I wrote the following to post to HLAS (but have not posted):

Greetings to my old friends, and hello to new ones. To my enemies, peace.

I suggested to Ms. Cooper that she join this group because of the literate discussion she would find here. I forgot about Brennen the bully, whom I find still denigrating my name. So excuse me while I address him directly.

Brennen--I've neglected HLAS lately because I have been deeply engaged in other matters, but now I find you disparaging me in my absence (unmindful of the Golden Rule), so I remind you that you are both a liar and a coward, as I pointed out in the Chess newsgroup two months ago. Yet while I've been away, you have continued to dump on me and my website. So I must challenge you to a public debate in Philadelphia. The topic "Twice-Told Tales by Idiots: Marlowe, Bacon and the Shakespeare Debate."

No more about Brennen.

Roberta Ballantine's Christopher Marlowe website

Adam Selzer - Official Home Page

According to new research from a University of Warwick historian, "the foul language and public name-calling hurled around on the streets of Elizabethan England from 1500 to 1700 was far worse than anything we hear today."

Of journalists, scholars and trolls

Note to Bob Grumman re: The Sarasota Herald-Tribune article about Roberta Ballantine: This is what the writer, MICHAEL POLLICK actually wrote:

"Another prominent Marlovian familiar with Ballantine's work is David More of Carbondale, Ill. He is publisher of the online newsletter 'The Marlovian.' More points out that Ballantine's very first cipher analysis -- of the words carved on Shakespeare's tomb -- was published by the 'Shakespeare Bulletin.'

'They were impressed enough there, and that is an orthodox publication,' More says.

More considers Ballantine a valuable resource -- a walking encyclopedia of events dating from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603). 'She knows the Elizabethan underworld like the back of her hand'."

Grumman said the article referred to me and John Baker as "scholars," which it doesn't. Neither John nor I are professional literary scholars, and Pollick is a responsible, accurate journalist, who strives to get the facts straight, which he did ... and Bob Grumman didn't. Bob doesn't have to, since he's a volunteer at HLAS?

Oh yeah ... gotta get the last word in with "Spam Scone," aka Neil Brennen....and Trot Nixon just homered off of Roger Clemens in the second inning of game 7 of the ALCS.

*** from a reader in a chess newsgroup***
Google Search:: "i may say that i enjoyed visiting your marlovian site and reading some of the contributions there. we have something in common, we both find ourselves here as the result of an accident, a shipwreck, if you will. my being here resulted from the fact that a friend and i were trolled by one of the most prominent members of this group. your being here evidently resulted from mr. brennen's having written about you, here."

Downsized

The man who posts under the screen name "Spam Scone" Neil Brennen posted another message today on HLAS about his photo in this blog. I think i've found a way that you can see what he looks like while respecting the webmaster's copyright of the photo. See below.

In the Sarasota Herald Tribune: Roberta Ballantine claims ciphers decode literary puzzle

Richard the Gumbonian

Elizabeth Weir can be pretty funny like when whe writes about DeVere in the gulag "at Hackney where he was sent after he fled the Armada in his size 3 shoes." Richard Kennedy, defender of DeVere, took offense, although Richard has poked fun at William of Stratford many times. Weir wasn't ridiculing his hero, Charlton Ogburn, who appears to be normal-sized man, of considerable heart and intelligence. But Oxford falls way short in the authorship sweepstakes. Bacon has the Strachey letter (so far), and Marlowe has *Lucrece* (so far). What's Edward got? A tall order, can Richard put it in rime royal? ;-)

Weir back

My dear friend Elizabeth Weir is back. Will she stay long enough to acknowledge the superiority (or plausibility) of the Marlovian case?

Here's Elizabeth:

> A genius wrote the Shakespeare works.
> Marlowe (Oxford) was a genius.
> Therefore Marlowe (Oxford) wrote the Shakespeare works.
>
> Part II--the hard part--of the Marlovian-Oxfordian argument
> is proving that Marlowe and Oxford were genius enough
> to write the works assigned to them.
>
> None of Marlowe's works received his name in his lifetime--
> a very curious thing since he was not under the aristocratic
> stima of print--which is an historical fact--so by claiming Marlowe's
> authorship of what looks like Shakespeare's apprenticeship as
> a playwright, Marlovians are, in the authorship dispute at least,
> then required to prove that Marlowe was genius enough to write
> the Marlowe works.

I couldn't resist the challenge so I wrote:

1. As a boy, Marlowe was given a scholarship to Kings School for "boys who could read Latin, write verse and sing plainsong."

2. He was given an Archbishop Parker scholarship to Cambridge.

3. Contemporaries: Peele, Drayton, Blount and Thorpe testify to Marley's genius.

4. His 1992 Latin dedicatory epistle to the Countess of Pembroke (signed C.M.) of Thomas Watson's book, promises committed to high culture, hence no name on Tamburlaine.

5. Dido was printed in 1594, by Nashe and Marlo.

6. Lucan's First Book and Hero and Leander registered in Sept. 1593. Both were published a few years later.

etc. etc. etc.

> Marlovians have nothing in terms of evidence other than
> Marlowe's spotty MA which Cambridge did not want to
> confer.

I trust the above evidence clears that up! If not, why not? Where shall I mail your Marlowe Lives! Association membership card?


> Oxfordians, who think biography is evidence, can
> claim without much dissent that Oxford wrote the poetry
> assigned to him which runs from doggeral to "documented
> to have been written by Harvey," but Oxford's own
> mediocre poetry--if his stable of ten poets didn't write
> the best of it--coupled with the fact that the self-promoting
> Oxford was anything but a concealed poet eliminates
> Oxford from authorship contention.
>
> your admirer of irrevocable renegades
>
> Elizabeth

With all due respect, the Oxfrodian case is a joke. The evidence is scantier than a thong on sumo wrestler.

I tell you, Elizabeth, the Bacovians rule!
You can have King Henry VIII, I Henry VI, and the first 17 sonnets.

Have you looked into Lucan? Surely the author of that could have written *Lucrece*, case closed.

Another member of the rime royal club

Greg Reynolds weighs in with this:

Mystery solv'd, as far as that's concerned,
Dave reminding us which college taught Kit:
Cambridge is where his poetry was learned...
Will had no schooling, come to think of it,
Proving then Lucrece is something Will writ!
Authorship questions are thereby neutered:
(The poet said his lines were "untutored.")


Nice job, Greg!
A for rime scheme
A for argument
C for meter (everyone but the last is 'headless', last three lines not iambic -- just passing on what i was taught by my betters)

Although the poet claimed untutored lines
The story came from older language sources:
William wouldn't recognize the signs,
Since Chaucer wasn't one his resources,
He was too busy tending theater horses.
The poet plainly lied unless he meant
UnTudored, and republic government.


Lucrece sources:

Neil Obstat

When Neil Brennen finally saw that I snagged (he says "stole") his photo from his website and posted it in this blog, he didn't like it one bit, so he's taken the image down...(If it were my picture I'd do the same thing). At least he's posting more informative messages like his latest on the King John POTM thread about Guy of Warwick.

It appears that the RM sonnet was a pastiche of Jim's, no?
If Jim wrote every line himself, he is no mean versifier. Still, the challenge I offer is to write original *rime royal* about how William (or Edward or Francis) wrote V&A and/or Lucrece.

To me, the fact that no Stratfordian or Oxfrodian in this ng can produce such verses tells me one of two things a) Strats aren't very versatile poets (pace Grumman) or, b) Strats don't know much about Shakespeare's narrative poetry (the works that "made his name," so to speak). (Ditto for the Deverites)

Note to Crowley: Why would Devere (as a pre-adolescent) write about an event that lead to the establishing of a REPUBLIC when Q. Elizabeth was a fairly new monarch?

Note to Brennen: this isn't about me, it's about writing poetry about Shakespeare. If you don't like mine, write better.

Note to Farey: since you're so proficient in rime royal, why don't you write your next Hoffman essay in that form. If you do I can almost *guarantee* that you will win. If you do, and you do, you can thank me later.

Note to Elizabeth: You're right: it's down to Marley and Bacon. I'm ready whenever you are...in poetry or prose.

Note to Lorenzo: keep it up.

Note to Shakespeareans (of all persuasions)--

rime royalling is not to be despised
by anyone who loves the old bard's verse;
by foiling each other we'll get wise
despite a metric lapse, off-rime, or worse,
if all the evidence is set down first.
so here's a fact that can be tersely told:
a greyhound sign showed where *Lucrece* was sold.