Skip to main content

Stratfordians have nowhere to squat

By
Alexander Waugh, presented two papers at the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship 2014 conference in Madison, WI; Photo Linda Theil

by Linda Theil

 Ron Halsted, Richard Joyrich and I attended the 2014 Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship conference in Madison, WI Sept 11-14. Alexander Waugh flew in from England to present two papers: one on the bogus nature of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust site, and the second on Ben Jonson's "Sweet Swan of Avon" reference in the First Folio that appears to place the author of Shakespeare's works on the banks of Stratford on Avon.

 Waugh's essay on the topic of Shakespeare's birthplace appears in his just-published Kindle Single ebook titled, Shakespeare in Court, and is available from Amazon for $1.99 at http://amazon.com/Shakespeare-Court-Kindle-Single-Alexander-ebook/dp/B00NFFP3OU. A Kindle reader is available at no cost from the site. Preview available here.

 Waugh's essay on Jonson's "swan of avon" is published in the latest editon of the SOF journal, The Oxfordian, that is available to SOF members -- information at http://www.shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/the-oxfordian/.

 Waugh says in The Oxfordian, Vol. 16 (2014) p. 100: 
So it would appear that Hampton Court was anciently known as “Avon”. Camden’s source was Leland’s Genethliacon of 1643, but this was by no means his only reference to the Royal palace as “Avon”. In his Cygnea Cantio (1545) Leland explained that Hampton Court was called “Avon” as a shortening of the Celtic-Roman name “avondumun” meaning a fortified place (dunum) by a river (avon), which “the common people by corruption called Hampton.” This etymology was supported by Raphael Hollinshed, who wrote in this Chronicles (1586) that “we now pronounce Hamton for Avondune.
 Edward de Vere’s tutor, the antiquarian Laurence Nowell, also knew of this connection because he transcribed, by hand, the complete “Syllabus” from Leland’s Genethliacon, which contains the  entry: “Avondunum, Aglice Hamtoncourte.” Historian William Lambarde, in his Topgraphical and Historical Dictionary of England, written in the 16902, includes an entry for Hampton Court, which, he writes, is “corruptly called Hampton for Avondun or Avon, and usual Names for many Waters within Ingland.”
So, one of the three shaky legs (i.e. title pages attributing work to Shakespeare, the Stratford monument, and Jonson's reference to the swan of Avon in the First Folio) of the Stratfordian attribution is sawn off by a British iconoclast who revels in challenging the status quo.

 Since the title pages are meaningless, the monument is fraudulent, and now the First Folio leads to the site where Shakespeare's plays were originally offered to the court, the Stratfordian stool is legless. 

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Waugaman named Oxfordian of the Year 2021

By
by Linda Theil Waugaman taking his first selfie in his home office in Potomac Maryland The Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship named Richard Waugaman, MD, Oxfordian of the Year 2021 at their annual conference on October 9, 2021. Waugaman is a clinical professor of psychiatry on the faculty of Georgetown University, a training and supervising analyst emeritus with the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, and is in private practice of psychiatry and psychoanalysis in Potomac, Maryland. For over a decade Waugaman has published extensively on the topic of Shakespeare authorship including work in journals outside the normal reach of the subject such as Psychoanalytic Quarterly , the International Journal of Psychoanalytic Studies , and  Contemporary Psychoanalysis . He has presented on the topic before such diverse venues as the International Psychoanalytic Congress, the New Directions Conference, the Shakespeare Association of America, the American Shakespeare Center, and the Cosmos Club in ...
Read more

What's a popp'rin' pear?

By
James Wheaton reported yesterday in the Jackson Citizen Patriot that the Michigan Shakespeare Festival high school tour of Romeo and Juliet was criticized for inappropriate content -- " So me take issue with sexual innuendoes in Michigan Shakespeare Festival’s High School Tour performances of ‘Romeo & Juliet’" : Western [High School] parent Rosie Crowley said she was upset when she heard students laughing about sexual content in the play afterwards. Her son didn’t attend the performance Tuesday because of another commitment, she said.  “I think the theater company should have left out any references that were rated R,” Crowley said. “I would say that I’ve read Shakespeare, and what I was told from the students, I’ve never read anything that bad.”  She said she objected to scenes that involved pelvic thrusting and breast touching and to a line in which Mercutio makes suggestive comments to Romeo after looking up the skirt of a female. The problem with cutting out...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dudley nails it to the door

By
Michael Dudley author of The Shakespeare Authorship Question and Philosphy: Knowledge, Rhetoric, Identity (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023) Michael Dudley views his vocation of librarian at the University of Manitoba with dialectic rigor. "Librarianship has a duty to inform democracy," he said in Kathryn Sharpe's virtual bookclub on April 27, 2024. Dudley discussed his new book The Shakespeare Authorship Question and Philosophy: Knowledge, Rhetoric, Identity published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing last fall. Update 08/21/24 Dudley's book is also available as an ebook from   Google Play . In SAQ and Philosophy Dudley uses the hammer of logic to nail his accusations against the barricaded door of the Shakespeare citadel. "The question of Shakespeare's authorship is a malformed debate practiced in an unethical fashion," Dudley said. When asked why his book is important, Dudley said: "What sets my book apart from others on the authorship quest...
Read more