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Possible subtle vandalism found in the article?

"The book also claims that the queen had children by the Earl of Leicester, Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, Mary Sidney and Elizabeth Leighton."

The last two names are female, so it's unlikely the queen had children by them, considering the lack of genetical engineering in the era... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.131.210.163 (talk) 09:40, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I assume one is a male, just has a female-sounding name. For example, George is a boy or girl's name; one of Nancy's Friends in the "Nancy Drew" series is a girl named George. Another example: Alex = Alexander, Alex = Alexandria (or Alexandra). I know an Alex who's female. Ethg242 (talk) 23:58, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

No, it's just that the comma after 'Leicester' should have been a colon. He's the alleged father. The others are all kids. Paul B (talk) 00:33, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

On the evidence

If "no evidence links Oxford to Shakespeare's works," then why do so many people believe he was the author? Why are most of the books and articles touting an alternative author about Oxford (and not others)? Why was a movie made about him? Why is he the most popular alternative candidate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.231.125.99 (talk • contribs)

No other candidate (including the realtor of S. upon Avon) have the necessary background for the italian job. Almost half of the works published as "by W.S." deal with Italy, with such an accuracy that locations can be traced to the doorway, even today. Oxenford was all over Italy, including, but not limited to italian womanfolk. No matter how much power and influence the british royalty expended to erase all trace leading of E. O., the italian job cannot be undone from the W.S. canon, even though the stratfordster never set foot outside Blighty. 82.131.210.163 (talk) 19:21, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

If no evidence exists that Oxford wrote the plays (and absolutely none does) the correct approach to validate the theory would be to find some. Instead, what Oxfordians have done is chain together a mountain of inference, supposition and deduction allied to a huge list of alleged similarities between Oxford,s life and the events portrayed in the plays as if they were autobiographical instead of works of imagination. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alfa-16 (talk • contribs) 07:42, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Derby probably went to Italy too; Marlowe certainly went to the continent. For all we know, WS may have done too. There is no evidence whatever that the "stratfordster never set foot outside Blighty". Still, there's no special knowledge of Italy in the plays, however hard one tries to invent it. And "the British royalty" have no motivation whatever to deny Oxford's authorship of any plays. Paul B (talk) 19:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

"For all we know, WS may have done too" is a very weak argument. For all we know, Shakespeare from Stratford may have been to Denmark. He be an ancestor of Glenn Close. He may have been a lot of things. "There is no evidence whatever that the 'stratfordster never set foot outside Blighty'." The same bad argument. Very difficult to prove a negative statement. There is no evidence that Shakespeare from Stratford never visited Scotland. You could make millions of such statements. We have solid proof that Oxford visited Italy, was literate, and knew Italian. "Still, there's no special knowledge of Italy in the plays, however hard one tries to invent it." Wrong again. There is special, specific knowledge that is contemporaneous with the Italy at the time. Whoever wrote the plays had to have access to this first-hand knowledge in some way. "And 'the British royalty' have no motivation whatever to deny Oxford's authorship of any plays." This statement is an irrelevant non sequitur. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.2.40 (talk) 17:45, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a good question. Of course there's no evidence connecting any of the alternative candidates. There is no simple answer, but I think it's that he fulfils the emotional needs of alternative author theorists better than the others. There is some discussion of this in Shapiro and Gibson, but it's a neglected topic. Paul B (talk) 16:28, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

"Parallels with the plays"-long and ludicrous

Just a question for right now - what is this long section on "parallels with the plays" doing in an encyclopedia article? It is full of such utterly ludicrous passages as on "As You Like It":"One of the sights Oxford may have taken in on his 1575–76 Christmas season visit to Siena, Italy was its cathedral, whose artwork includes a mosaic of the Seven Ages of Man." Maybe Oxford went to the cathedral and maybe he looked at a mosaic and maybe this is where he got an idea for a speech in a play? It actually shocks me to see such obvious speculation in a supposed neutral source of information ( maybe I am easily shocked). That whole long passage is just a lot of speculative rubbish it seems to me, it should all be deleted and just two or three of the plays such as Hamlet and Love's Labours Lost which "Oxfordians" believe demonstrate their case best discussed. I am very new here and have no intention of trying to delete anything at the moment but just wanted to say that as a pair of fresh eyes coming to this article that passage on "parallels with the plays" is way too long, not neutral at all, and full of quite laughable speculation.Smeat75 (talk) 03:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

True, but in case you are not aware, this topic has been very contentious with sustained efforts by enthusiasists to use Misplaced Pages to explain the TRUTH regarding the issue, and was the subject of an arbitration case. The main article is Shakespeare authorship question (which, due to heroic efforts by its principal authors, is a featured article), and that SAQ article is good. There are some references in the section you mention, and some of those point to secondary sources that describe the claims in the article, so it might be reasonable that the Oxfordian case is presented. It can be difficult knowing how best to do that in a due manner. Johnuniq (talk) 03:30, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

That section was once a stand-alone article, which by consensus was merged here. The most devoted Oxfordian editor tends to resist the removal of even the most ridiculous arguments like the seven ages one you mention. Of course the "Seven Ages" was almost as familiar a concept as the four seasons, and if you look at the Siena images they are completely different from Shakespeare's (no lover, no soldier for example). Paul B (talk) 16:48, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

So there are users of Misplaced Pages who would like to deny every single trace of Edward de Vere in Shakespeare´s work or even remove all the traces. This is a futile effort. --Zbrnajsem (talk) 16:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Shakespeare's seven ages speech derives primarily from Zodiacus Vitae, a school text. The argument connecting it to the Siena designs is frankly desperate. This supposed effort is not futile, since it is supported by almost all serious Shakespeare scholars. But of course this page is for discussion of the theory, which means that the arguments should be obviously be included. Nevertheless, the page should be coherent - not a rag-bag collection of any old idea that anyone ever had, thrown together. The case is not well supported when it is full of transparent misrepresentations of the facts. Paul B (talk) 16:27, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

One unintended consequence of having every fanciful connection reproduced here, given that Misplaced Pages is the 'goto' source for online argument, is that they get reproduced elsewhere. For example, the imdb board for the film was recently flooded by a poster who reproduced each tiny quoted similarity as a separate thread in the hope that serious argument would be deleted by the board's housekeeping routines. On the whole, if nonsense cannot be labelled as 'fanciful speculation' it should be omitted from an 'encyclopaedic' reference work. Readers who alight on this page are not aware that it is a ghetto for arguments that have proved unacceptable when submitted to the arbitration process elsewhere and unless there is a better warning that the page contains widely discredited argument and the unacceptable idea that Shakespeare's plays are code biography rather than works of imagination, I think the whole page should be removed.Alfa-16 (talk) 11:16, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Improvements

I feel the article has been vastly improved with just a few changes. Still needs works in the body, but the introduction is looking very good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.231.115.210 (talk) 00:07, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

You can improve the article if you add useful, content rather than assertions. Paul B (talk) 13:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

And preface the section by explaining that however similar the comparisons may seem, over the entire corpus of 37 plays, they do little to support the overall case of Oxford's authorship given that it would be relatively easy to come up with a similar list of 'similarities' to any other Elizabethan or Jacobean nobleman, or even members of the contemporary middle classes. It should at least acknowledge that these similarities are not seen to contribute anything to the argument outside the dedicated inner circle of Oxfordian zealots. Alfa-16 (talk) 11:24, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Recent vandalism has been deleted. Brilliant exposition restored. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.12.126 (talk) 01:39, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

If you want a change that is retained in the article it will be necessary to understand some of the very reasonable procedures used at Misplaced Pages. See WP:5P for an overview, but the critical points for the attempted changes are found in WP:NPOV. Text like "convincingly demonstrates" must be attributed as someone's opinion, and the someone must be a recognized authority on the subject. Likewise "but this is hardly definitive as to their composition" and "This is a reasonable conclusion in light of recent scholarship" are the opinions of an editor: good stuff on a blog but not usable here. There are several other problems with the attempted changes. If there is a question about how to implement an improvement, please add a new section and ask. Also, you can try WP:HELPDESK.

Continuing the current line of repeating the changes and calling their reversion vandalism is just going to get the article protected so you cannot change it. Johnuniq (talk) 02:08, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Minerva Britanna

The article states "Edward de Vere was known to Peacham, since in 1612 his Minerva Britanna anagramed Vere's name on the frontispiece, denoting him as the Minerva (or Mind) of the Age." Strangely this very claim was removed from the main article by our esteemed colleague Smatprt, presumably because he did not think it helped make the case, and perhaps because the wording there drew attention to the spuriousness of the claim itself (The wording was, a device from Henry Peacham's Minerva Britanna (1612) depicting a hand appearing from behind a curtain and writing the Latin motto MENTE VIDEBOR ("By the mind I shall be seen") was first used to support Bacon's candidacy, but is seen by Oxfordians as a clue to Oxford's hidden authorship. By interpreting the final full stop as the beginning of an "I", the phrase becomes an anagram of TIBI NOM. DE VERE ("Thy Name is De Vere"). Paul B (talk) 14:00, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

This piece of analysis by Mark Anderson has been comprehensively discredited. There is no indication in the 'device' that it was intended to have an additional letter 'I'. Indeed the hand has already written an 'I' and the new letter it appears to be adding is completely different. There is space for at least four more letters on the empty part of the scoll. There is no latin word 'videbori' in any case. and TIBI NOM DE VERE is an incorrect use of the indicative pronoun. Proponents ignore the fact that Minerva is female and a Goddess and if you want to find a powerful, goddess-like female to associate with 'Britannia' you do not have to look very far at the Elizabethan court. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alfa-16 (talk • contribs) 07:42, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Oxford´s travel and his stay in Italy

Thanks to user 67.142.235.68 who removed this unbelievable nonsense concerning Oxford´s travel‎ to Italy and his stay there for almost one year. Without any justification someone tried to minimize the significance of Oxford´s stay in this beautiful and culturally important country and of the experience he gathered there for the authorship question. --Zbrnajsem (talk) 10:30, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

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