To be fair to the Oxfordians (and I have no position on this), what they will say is that Oxford's extant poems were written when he was very young. Joe Sobran, for ex, points out that Titus Andronicus is so inferior to late works like The Tempest that it was hard to believe Shakespeare wrote it. And as I recall, young Twain's "The Gallant Fireman" (if I'm remembering it correctly) didn't show a lot of promise, either, till you realize how young he was. Of course, it can work the other way, too, especially with poetry: I look at some of my earlier poem and think: wow, how come I can't write like that now?
Dan Walker


-----Original Message-----
From: Hal Bush <[log in to unmask]>
To: TWAIN-L <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tue, Jan 28, 2014 10:03 am
Subject: Re: Shakespeare


thanks Sean; that's a great point.  early conspiracy theory at its most
laughable!  -hb


On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 5:34 PM, Sean Russell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dar Hal:
>
> Condolences.  I was very curious about this odd idea that Oxford wrote
> Shakespeare and did some reading into this area at one point.   The thing
> that really made me laugh - literally - was reading some of the poetry
> attributed to the Earl of Oxford (you can find this on the pro-Oxford sites
> so they don't deny the earl wrote it).  Part way through the third poem I
> could not stop laughing.  People think this amateur wrote the works of
> Shakespeare?  Of course the Oxford supporters will claim the earl wrote
> that
> mediocre poetry so no one would guess he was the genius behind the poetry
> of
> Shakespeare - because no self-respecting aristocrat would like to be known
> as a literary genius.  They'd much rather be known as a barely competent
> dabbler.
>
> Best,
>
> Sean Russell
>



-- 
Prof. Harold K. Bush
Professor of English
3800 Lindell
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, MO  63108
314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h)
<www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>