Ssteinburg

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A topic of interest to you is covered by Arbcom sanctions

The Arbitration Committee has permitted administrators to impose, at their own discretion, sanctions on any editor working on pages broadly related to Shakespeare authorship question if the editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. If you engage in inappropriate behavior in this area, you may be placed under sanctions including blocks, a revert limitation or an article ban. The committee's full decision can be read at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Shakespeare authorship question#Final decision. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 17:33, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Please read

The Arbitration Committee has permitted administrators to impose, at their own discretion, sanctions on any editor working on pages broadly related to Shakespeare authorship question if the editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. If you engage in further inappropriate behavior in this area, you may be placed under sanctions including blocks, a revert limitation or an article ban. The committee's full decision can be read at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Shakespeare authorship question#Final decision. Tom Reedy (talk) 12:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

So, Tom, enlighten me. What "standard of behavior" have I violated? Ssteinburg (talk) 14:14, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Contemporary Shakespeare Doubt

Although I am a neophyte in the Authorship dispute, who has engaged Reedy and Nishidani to my disadvantage in other fora, I believe I have knowledge that can break the logjam were it not for such Wikipedia policies as Reliable Source and Fringe, among others. Possibly with your knowledge and experience, you might be able to finesse these restrictions and deploy this information effectively. In 2008 British mathematician David L. Roper published Proving Shakespeare whose revised and updated 2nd edition came out in 2011. Roper's main point is that Ben Jonson's inscription on the Stratford monument contains a cryptogram in the form of a Cardan grille whose unique solution avers that Edward de Vere wrote the works of Shakespeare. This solution meets the criteria set forth by the Friedmans in 1957 for what would constitute a successful Shakespearian cypher; but they dealt only with Baconian cyphers and never discussed the Cardan grille. I encourage you to examine Roper's essays on his work. I quote a paragraph on Roper's discussion of Bate's The Genius of Shakespeare: "Once again Bate commits inaccuracies with his statements. It is quite untrue to say nobody dissented to Shakespeare's authorship for two hundred years. Ben Jonson positively avowed that Edward de Vere was Shakespeare, and urged that he be tested to prove this. Thomas Thorpe also asserted that Shake-speares Sonnets were written by the Earl of Oxford; Henry Peacham was another who cryptically confirmed de Vere's hidden authorship by the use of a clever anagram on the cover page of his book, Minerva Britanna (Chapter 9 refers). Leonard Digges was also one who encoded de Vere's name into the poem he had intended for inclusion in the First Folio (Chapter 9 refers). And in Sonnet 76 which is specifically about the poet's name, Oxford, himself, admits to having written it (p. 201)" (p. 354). The Jonson, Thorpe, and Oxford revelations are contained in Cardan grilles. Two years ago when I engaged Nishidani in private, he would not concede a thing, even insisting that it was not acceptible to grant the letter "g" represents the number "7" in a code because as far as he was concerned there was no attestation he would accept. Then later I learned that this substitution is credited by the O.E.D. This coded dating pertained to the Peacham manuscript concerning a production at Court of Titus Andronicus in 1574, the year before Oxford went to Italy and the Stratford fellow was a mere lad. Two years ago I added Roper's book to a list of references on the S.A.C. entry; but it was deleted on the grounds that it was not RS and also Fringe. Roper has not been able to find a cryptology journal to review his discovery, sometimes on the false claim that the Friedmans had refuted all Shakespearian cryptograms, and when James Shapiro was at University of Kansas to lecture, he adamantly refused to read Roper when asked by Prof. Albert Burgstahler, an Oxfordian Professor Emeritus of Chemistry. Phaedrus7 (talk) 01:14, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I thank you, Phaedrus7, for your suggestions, but my intent is to abide by Wikipedia policy (as I understand it) and the underlying philosophy, which relies on ‘reliable sources’. To expand the argument for “contemporaneous doubt” into hidden messages (however compelling) would, as a minimum, require a much broader argument and, I am quite sure, would be counter-productive. Ssteinburg (talk) 18:23, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the courtesy of your reply. I see today Reedy has discovered my January editing at Mermaid tavern. On the chance that you might find some merit, here are David Roper's comments to me on contemporaneous doubt with page references to his Proving Shakespeare (2011): "The first hint that Shakespeare was a penname came from the author of ‘Willobie His Avisa’: a satirical tale in prose and verse in which the author deliberately hyphenated Shake-speare when referring to his poem ‘Rape of Lucrece’, published earlier that year, in which Shakespeare wrote his name unhyphenated. (p.207)

"The second hint was from Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, who sent an urgent letter to her son, who was on a progress with James, to return to Wilton House, as “Shakespeare” had arrived. The King and his party, who had only left the House a few weeks earlier, retraced their steps back to Wilton on the strength of that letter. Although the letter has now ‘disappeared’, the facts of the King’s movements are historical record. (p.499)

"The third hint comes from the unknown purchaser of the First Folio edition, which is owned by Glasgow University. The purchaser knew the actors and made comments about them in the FF. Against Shakespeare, he wrote “lease for making”, which meant in those days, ‘false for bringing into being’. (p.472)."

I also bring to your attention four books by Walter Hart Blumenthal (1883-1969) whose major theme is that no evidence exists that any contemporary of Shakespeare ever had personal contact with the person, as opposed to the poetry: The Mermaid Myth: Shakespeare Not Among Those Present (1959, 32 pp.), Paging Mr. Shakespeare: A Critical Challenge (1961, 328 pp., index), Shakespeare, Veneration or Verity: Critical Comments from a Skeptic (1963, 34 pp.), Who Knew Shakespeare? What Was His Reputation in His Lifetime? (1965, 97 pp.). These books are all available in libraries. Phaedrus7 (talk) 19:53, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Ssteinburg (talk) 21:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)