Subject
Shakspere a playwright? (fwd)
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From: "Peter A. Kartsev" <petr@glas.apc.org>
Nabokov changing his opinion on the authorship of SLOVO (or on any other
matter) in order to spite Roman Jakobson (or some other nonentity) is
about as easy to believe as the illiterate oaf from Stratford writing
HAMLET. I guess a case could also be made that VN wrote the poem
"Shakespeare" (as well as all his other works, why not?) in order to
spite Adamovich, Ivanov, Wilson and a succession of others. This,
however, will be inconsistent with just about everything he ever wrote
(thus making him an inveterate liar) and with everything we know about
him. It seems rather more logical to suppose that with his aristocratic
and individualistic view of art, the picture he drew in the poem would
appeal to his imagination much more than that of Will Shakspere penning
masterpieces casually and carelessly after a hard day of moneylending
and debt collecting. In this respect, I think, Nabokov fits remarkably
well with the dissenting group.
And if this is "toying with anti-Stratfordianism", as somebody called
it, then what Samuel Schoenbaum does is surely nothing more than toying
with Stratfordianism. While Nabokov never names his candidate for the
authorship, Schoenbaum et al. drag out the most preposterous candidate
of all, the Stratford boor. The anti-Stratfordian contention, by the
way, is NOT that William Shakespeare did not write the plays. The
heretics only maintain that there is absolutely no proof that whoever
chose to hide behind that name and William Shakspere of Stratford are
one and the same. This subtle difference with all its implications has
to be understood by anyone who is interested in the subject. Oxford may
not have been the author; but Shakspere couldn't have been.
And a first-class teacher Samuel Schoenbaum probably wasn't, unless it
be compatible with crafty evasion of all difficult points in one's
subject. I refer the interested few to Charlton Ogburn's "The Mysterious
William Shakespeare", which cites the examples. It also gives a list of
dissenters almost a page long, none of them nitwits or congenital
idiots.
Peter.
Nabokov changing his opinion on the authorship of SLOVO (or on any other
matter) in order to spite Roman Jakobson (or some other nonentity) is
about as easy to believe as the illiterate oaf from Stratford writing
HAMLET. I guess a case could also be made that VN wrote the poem
"Shakespeare" (as well as all his other works, why not?) in order to
spite Adamovich, Ivanov, Wilson and a succession of others. This,
however, will be inconsistent with just about everything he ever wrote
(thus making him an inveterate liar) and with everything we know about
him. It seems rather more logical to suppose that with his aristocratic
and individualistic view of art, the picture he drew in the poem would
appeal to his imagination much more than that of Will Shakspere penning
masterpieces casually and carelessly after a hard day of moneylending
and debt collecting. In this respect, I think, Nabokov fits remarkably
well with the dissenting group.
And if this is "toying with anti-Stratfordianism", as somebody called
it, then what Samuel Schoenbaum does is surely nothing more than toying
with Stratfordianism. While Nabokov never names his candidate for the
authorship, Schoenbaum et al. drag out the most preposterous candidate
of all, the Stratford boor. The anti-Stratfordian contention, by the
way, is NOT that William Shakespeare did not write the plays. The
heretics only maintain that there is absolutely no proof that whoever
chose to hide behind that name and William Shakspere of Stratford are
one and the same. This subtle difference with all its implications has
to be understood by anyone who is interested in the subject. Oxford may
not have been the author; but Shakspere couldn't have been.
And a first-class teacher Samuel Schoenbaum probably wasn't, unless it
be compatible with crafty evasion of all difficult points in one's
subject. I refer the interested few to Charlton Ogburn's "The Mysterious
William Shakespeare", which cites the examples. It also gives a list of
dissenters almost a page long, none of them nitwits or congenital
idiots.
Peter.