In this simple line Emerson sets the challenge for anyone who wishes to prove that Edward de Vere (or any other writer) wrote the works that are traditionally assigned to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. The works are published under the sign of William Shakespeare - his name is on the plays!- is offered as a statement of bald fact.
Yet texts are composed of signs, and, as representations of reality they are subject to manipulation. My task as an Oxfordian is to prove, or at least demonstrate the possibility that Jonson 'does not mean what he seems to say' in the front matter of Shakespeare's First Folio. And perhaps more importantly, to suggest a reason why Jonson may have created such a monstrous deception in the first place.
Was Jonson a liar?
Absolutely not.
I believe the answer lies in the age old problem of 'speaking truth to power'. Classical rhetoricians had developed techniques to censure the powerful, and to speak of persons and events that had been deemed unmentionable. Jonson's writings demonstrate that he is familiar with such teachings. As in Lucan's catasterisation of Nero, censure of a tyrant or a vicious person could be accomplished under cover of praise.
Jonson, whose plain style has been described as possessing the virtues of 'weight, clarity and exactness' [Parfitt], chooses to completely abandon these carefully cultivated qualities in his Folio poem. Why?
In his _Discoveries_, Ben Jonson paraphrases Quintilian in a description of the conditions under which 'figured language' may be used 'correctly':
"But why do men depart at all from the right and natural ways of speaking? sometimes for necessity, when we are driven, or think it fitter, to speak that in obscure words, or by circumstance, which uttered plainly would offend the hearers*. Or to avoid obsceneness, or sometimes for pleasure, and variety, as travellers turn out of the highway, drawn either by the commodity of a footpath, or the delicacy or freshness of the fields. And all this is called εσχηματισμενη (eschematismene) or FIGURED LANGUAGE."
Quintilian
Institutio Oratoria Book IX
65 Similar, if not identical with this figure is another, which is much in vogue at the present time. For I must now proceed to the discussion of a class of figure which is of the common est occurrence and on which I think I shall be expected to make some comment. It is one whereby we excite some suspicion to indicate that our meaning is other than our words would seem to imply; but our meaning is not in this case contrary to that which we express, as is the case in irony, but rather a hidden meaning which is left to the hearer to discover. As I have already pointed out, modern rhetoricians practically restrict the name of figure to this device, from the use of which figured controversial themes derive their name. This class of figure may be employed under three conditions first, if it is unsafe to speak openly; secondly, if it is unseemly to speak openly; and thirdly, when it is employed solely with a view to the elegance of what we say, and gives greater pleasure by reason of the novelty and variety thus introduced than if our meaning had been expressed in straightforward language. 67 The first of the three is of common occurrence in the schools, where we imagine conditions laid down by tyrants on abdication and decrees passed by the senate after a civil war, and it is a capital offence to accuse a person with what is past, what is not expedient in the courts being actually prohibited in the schools. But the conditions governing the employment of figures differ in the two cases. For we may speak against the tyrants in question as openly as we please without loss of effect, provided always that what we say is susceptible of a different interpretation, since it is only danger to ourselves, and not offence to them, that we have to avoid. And if the danger can be avoided by any ambiguity of expression, the speaker's cunning will meet with universal approbation. On the other hand, the actual business of the courts has never yet involved such necessity for silence, though at times they require something not unlike it, which is much more embarrassing for the speaker, as, for example, when he is hampered by the existence of powerful personages, whom he must censure if he is to prove his case. Consequently he must proceed with greater wariness and circumspection; since the actual manner in which offence is given is a matter of indifference, and if a figure is perfectly obvious, it ceases to be a figure. Therefore such devices are absolutely repudiated by some authorities, whether the meaning of the figure be intelligible or not. But it is possible to employ such figures in moderation, the primary consideration being that they should not be too obvious.
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In the dedication of his play _Catiline_ (1611) to William Herbert, one of the 'Incomparable Brethren' of the First Folio, Jonson writes of his despair over the 'ignorance' of the age:
To the Great Example of H O N O U R and V E R T U E, the most Noble
W I L L I A M
E A R L of P E M B R O K E , L O R D C H A M B E R L A I N, &c.
M Y L O R D,
IN so thick and dark an IGNORANCE, as now almost covers the AGE, I crave leave to stand near your Light, and by that to be read. Posterity may pay your Benefit the Honour and Thanks, when it shall know, that you dare, in these Jig-given times, to countenance a Legitimate Poem. I must call it so, against all noise of Opinion: from whose crude and airy Reports, I appeal to that great and singular Faculty of Judgment in your Lordship, able to vindicate Truth from Error.
I'd like to explore further Jonson's frustration with the ignorance of his age, the age that preferred 'jigs' to his 'Legitimate Poems'. An age of preposterous judgements; an age that applauded Shakespeare and hissed his own plays from the stage. An age of fools that he knew would swallow the First Folio bombast whole, without properly digesting it.
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Jonson - Timber
Censura de poetis. - Nothing in our age, I have observed, is more PREPOSTEROUS than the running judgments upon poetry and poets; when we shall hear those things commended and cried hup for the best writings which a man would scarce vouchsafe to wrap any wholesome drug in; he would never light his tobacco with them. And those men almost named for miracles, who yet are so vile that if a man should go about to examine and correct them, he must make all they have done but one BLOT. Their good is so entangled with their bad as forcibly one must draw on the other' s death with it. A sponge dipped in ink will do all:-
" - Comitetur Punica librum Spongia. - " {44a}
Et paulò post,
" Non possunt . . . multæ . . . lituræ . . . una litura potest."
Cestius - Cicero - Heath - Taylor - Spenser. - Yet their vices have not hurt them; nay, a great many they have profited, for they have been loved for nothing else. And this false opinion grows strong against the best men, if once it take root with the ignorant. Cestius, in his time, was preferred to Cicero, so far as the ignorant durst. They learned him without book, and had him often in their mouths; but a man cannot imagine that thing so foolish or rude but will find and enjoy an admirer; at least a reader or spectator. The puppets are seen now in despite of the players; Heath' s epigrams and the Sculler' s poems have their applause. There are never wanting that dare prefer the worst preachers, the worst pleaders, the worst poets; not that the better have left to write or speak better, but that they that hear them judge worse; Non illi pejus dicunt, sed hi corruptius judicant. Nay, if it were put to the question of the water-rhymer' s works, against Spenser' s, I doubt not but they would find more suffrages; because the most favour common vices, out of a prerogative the vulgar have to lose their judgments and like that which is naught.
Poetry, in this latter age, hath proved but a mean mistress to such as have wholly addicted themselves to her, or given their names up to her family. They who have but saluted her on the by, and now and then tendered their visits, she hath done much for, and advanced in the way of their own professions (both the law and the gospel) beyond all they could have hoped or done for themselves without her favour. Wherein she doth emulate the judicious but PREPOSTEROUS bounty of the time' s grandees, who accumulate all they can upon the parasite or fresh-man in their friendship; but think an old client or honest servant bound by his place to write and starve.
Indeed, the multitude commend writers as they do fencers or wrestlers, who if they come in robustiously and put for it with a deal of violence are received for the braver fellows; when many times their own rudeness is a cause of their disgrace, and a slight touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. But in these things the unskilful are naturally deceived, and judging wholly by the bulk, think rude things greater than polished, and scattered more numerous than composed; nor think this only to be true in the sordid multitude, but the neater sort of our gallants; for all are the multitude, only they differ in clothes, not in judgment or understanding.
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Jonson's admirers were at times outraged at the behaviour of the 'ignorant' audiences at the Globe. Following is written by 'Ev. B' and appears at the front of Jonson's 'Sejanus':
To the most understanding Poet.
When in the Globe's fair ring, our world's best stage,
I saw Sejanus, set with that rich foil,
I looked the author should have born the spoil
Of conquest from the WRITERS OF THE AGE;
But when I viewed the people's beastly rage,
Bent to confound thy grave and learned toil,
That cost thee so much sweat, and so much oil,
My indignation I could hardly'assuage.
And many there (in passion) scarce could tell
Whether thy fault or theirs deserved most blame -
Thine, for so showing, theirs, to wrong the same;
But both they left within that doubtful hell.
From whence, this publication sets thee free;
They, for their IGNORANCE, still damned be.
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Bartholomew Fair: Jonson
T H E I N D u C T I O N O N T H E S T A G E.
It is further covenanted, concluded and agreed, That how great soever the expectation be, no Person here is to expect more than he knows, or better Ware than a Fair will afford: neither to look back to the Sword and Buckler-age of Smithfield, but content himself with the present. Instead of a little Davy, to take Toll o' the Bawds, the Author doth promise a strutting Horse-courser, with a leer-Drunkard, two or three to attend him, in as good Equipage as you would wish. And then for Kind- heart, the Tooth-drawer, a fine Oily Pig-woman with her Tapster, to bid you welcome, and a Consort of Roarers for Musick. A wise Justice of Peace meditant, instead of a Jugler, with an Ape. A civil Cutpurse searchant. A sweet Singer of new Ballads allurant: and as fresh an Hypocrite, as ever was broach'd, rampant. If there be ne- ver a Servant-monster i' the Fair, who can help it, he says, nor a Nest of Antiques? He is loth to make NATURE AFRAID in his Plays, like those that beget Tales, Tem- pests, and such like Drolleries, to mix his Head with other Mens Heels; let the concupiscence of Jigs and Dances, reign as strong as it will amongst you: yet if the Pup- pets will please any body, they shall be entreated to come in.
Jonson. Verse Prologue, _Every Man in His Humor _
SCENE,---LONDON
PROLOGUE.
Though need make many poets, and some such As art and nature have not better'd much; Yet ours for want hath not so loved the stage, As he dare serve the ill customs of the AGE, Or purchase your delight at such a rate, As, for it, he himself must justly hate: To make a child now swaddled, to proceed Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed, Past threescore years; or, with three *rusty swords*, And help of some few foot and half-foot words, Fight over York and Lancaster's king jars, And in the tyring-house bring wounds to scars. He rather prays you will be pleas'd to see One such to-day, as other plays should be; Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas, Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please; Nor nimble squib is seen to make afeard The gentlewomen; nor roll'd bullet heard To say, it thunders; nor tempestuous drum Rumbles, to tell you when the storm doth come; But deeds, and language, such as men do use, And persons, such as comedy would choose, When she would shew an image of the times, And sport with human follies, not with crimes. Except we make them such, by loving still Our popular errors, when we know they're ill. I mean such errors as you'll all confess, By laughing at them, they deserve no less: Which when you heartily do, there's hope left then, *You, that have so grac'd MONSTERS, may like men*.
Plain-spoken Jonson never changed his mind about Shakespeare's 'monstrous', (unnatural) plays, he just became more subtle.
(If the deformities of the Droeshout engraving - mismatched front panels of the doublet, two left arms - are subtle. The Unexemplary Figure. A ridiculous figure, to accompany a ridiculous encomium.)
In future posts I'll attempt to demonstrate that 'Shakespeare' figures the noble Edward de Vere's 'preposterous fame'.
It may take more than one try.
Jonson _Discoveries_ (In the difference of wits, note 10)
Not. 10.--It cannot but come to pass that these men who commonly seek to do more than enough may sometimes happen on something that is good and great; but very seldom: and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. For their jests, and their sentences (which they only and ambitiously seek for) stick out, and are more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about them; as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness than a faint shadow. Now, because they speak all they can (however unfitly), they are thought to have the greater copy; where the learned use ever election and a mean, they look back to what they intended at first, and make all an even and proportioned body.
http://home.att.net/~tleary/GIFS/DROUS.JPG
The true artificer will not run away from NATURE as he were AFRAID of her, or depart from life and the likeness of truth, but speak to the capacity of his hearers. And though his language differ from the vulgar somewhat, it shall not fly from all humanity, with the Tamerlanes and Tamer- chains of the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting and furious vociferation to warrant them to the ignorant gapers. He knows it is his only art so to carry it, as none but artificers perceive it. In the meantime, perhaps, he is called barren, dull, lean, a poor writer, or by what contumelious word can come in their cheeks, by these men who, without labour, judgment, knowledge, or almost sense, are received or preferred before him. He gratulates them and their fortune. Another age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveighing, what sharpness; in jest, what urbanity he uses; how he doth reign in men's affections; how invade and break in upon them, and makes their minds like the thing he writes. Then in his elocution to behold what word is proper, which hath ornaments, which height, what is beautifully translated, where figures are fit, which gentle, which strong, to show the composition manly; and how he hath avoided faint, obscure, obscene, sordid, humble, improper, or effeminate phrase; which is not only praised of the most, but commended (which is worse), especially for that it is naught.
John Beaumont ,_Jonsonus Virbius_
…Twas he that found (plac'd) in the seat of wit,
Dull grinning IGNORANCE, and banish'd it;
He on the prostituted stage appears
To make men hear, not by their eyes, but ears;
Who painted virtues, that each one might know,
And point the man, that did such treasure owe :
So that who could in JONSON'S lines be high
Needed not honours, or a riband buy ;
But vice he only shewed us in a glass,
Which by reflection of those rays that pass,
Retains the figure lively, set before,
And that withdrawn, reflects at us no more;
So, he observ'd the like decorum, when
*He whipt the vices, and yet spar'd the men* :
When heretofore, the Vice's only note,
And sign from virtue was his party-coat;
When devils were the last men on the stage,
And pray'd for plenty, and the present age.
FALKLAND, _Jonsonus Virbius_
...How in an IGNORANT, and learn'd AGE he swaid,
(Of which the first he found, the second made)
How He, when he could know it, reapt his Fame,
And long out-liv'd the envy of his Name:
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Jonson's 'First Folio' encomium to Shakespeare mocks Shakespeare and his audience. 'Understanders' would judge correctly what the praise 'Soul of the Age' meant, knowing that Jonson had repeatedly insulted the Age as incapable of judging his quality. Ignorant admirers of Shakespeare's popular works - the jig-lover's - would foolishly accept the empty bombastic sound of Jonson's First Folio praise while proving themselves incapable of judging its ironic sense. As their own commendations condemned their own judgement, Jonson's artful 'test' vindicated his own reputation and aesthetic choices.
The First Folio's process of selecting discerning, learned 'extraordinary' Readers still stands today as a test of judgement. Modern audiences accustomed to be flattered and unused to being themselves regarded and judged by an inert page and a long-dead author do not perceive the intellectual aggression and challenge latent in the FF front matter (including the disproportionate, ambisinister and decidedly counter-classical Droeshout 'Figure'.) The front matter to the Folio is a strange monument to Jonson's genius, with the seemingly passive page concealing an immediate challenge that has an almost 'living' or active quality - for myself it is as if the author has switched from the object of my gaze to observer, and that suddenly it is I that am being judged. Perhaps this is the 'immortality' the poets wrote of. In this moment of understanding, Jonson ACTS on my mind as strongly as if he were in the room.
Jonson, Catiline, 1611
TO THE READER IN ORDINARIE.
THE Muses forbid, that I shold restrayne you medling, whom I see alreade busie with the Title, o
uer the leaues: It is your owne. I departed with my right, when I let it first abroad. And, now, so secure an Interpreter I am of my chance, that neither praise, nor dispraise from you can affect mee. Though you commend the two first Actes, with the people, because they are the worst; and dislike the Oration of Cicero, in regard you read some pieces of it, at School, and vnderstand them not yet; I shall finde the way to forgiue you. Be any thing you will be, at your owne charge. Would I had deseru'd but halfe so well of it in translation, as that ought to deserue of you in iudgment, if you haue any. I know you will pretend (whosoeuer you are) to haue that, and more. But all pretences are not iust claymes. The commendation of good things may fall within a many, their approbation but in a few· for the most commend out of affection, selfe tickling, an easinesse, or imitation: but men iudge only out of knowledge. That is the trying faculty. And, to those workes that will beare a Iudge, nothing is more dangerous then a foolish prayse. You will say I shall not haue yours, therfore; but rather the contrary, all vexation of Censure. If I were not aboue such molestations now, I had great cause to thinke vnworthily of my studies, or they had so of mee. But I leaue you to your exercise. Beginne.
To the Reader extraordinary.
YOu I would vnderstand to be the better Man, though Paces in Court go otherwise: to you I submit my selfe, and worke. Farewell.
BEN: IONSON.
********************************Title: Catiline his conspiracy.
To his worthy beloved Friend Master Ben. Jonson.
Had the great thoughts of Catiline beene good
The memory of his name, streame of his blood
His plots past into acts, (which would have turn'd
His infamy to Fame, though Rome had burn'd)
Had not begot him equall grace with men,
As this, that he is Writ by such a Pen:
Whos inspirations, if great Rome had had,
Her good things had bin better'd, and her bad
Undone; the first for joy, the last for feare,
That such a Muse should spread them, to our eare.
But woe to us then: for thy Laureat brow
If Rom enjoy'd had, we had wanted now.
But, in thie AGE, where JIGS and DANCES move,
How few there are, that this pure worke approve!
Yet, better then I rayle at, thou canst scorne
Censures, that dye, ere thy be throughly borne.
Each Subject thou, still thee each Subject raises.
And whosoever thy Booke, HIMSELF DISPRAISES.
NAT. FIELD. (note - Nathan Field?)
