Shouts From Down Under

Wherefore aren't thou O bribery and corruption?

When you think about William Shakespeare, you think about the pinnacle of poetry of the 1500's extended into the modern age, don't you?

Isn't this bit of history we were taught at school as vapourous as everything else? "FACTS" such as how white people were somehow supreme beings, Columbus discovered America, the Dutch clomped their clogs on Australia first, evolution is the only possible answer, and jailing all bad people (treating them like animals) will miraculously rehabilitate them; all these "facts" couldn't be argued against. And before that, say, the Spanish Inquisition, their view of the world and God was the only right one, everyone else was heathens and barbarians, and besides all that, the earth was flat bro'.

So I just packaged enough dodgy facts and double negativeish stuff in that paragraph to keep people's arguments (and wars) going for centuries, possibly millenia. Well, I hope so because maybe it will distract people from the scary reality that not everything we are taught is fact.

2 + 2 = 4

Yes, some things, in a practical sense, are definitely true.

What if Bill Shakespeare was just a sham. Yes, his poetry was very good and still is, but what if EVERYONE at the time wrote stuff way better than his? I mean, they had plenty of time to think about it. No TV. No internet or even those tiresome time wasting chores such as checking the engine oil and water in your car. They didn't have to do ANYTHING back then. Lots of free time, in between wheat harvest, whipping slaves, beheading the odd criminal, burning witches at the stake and a few Black Plague odds and ends to fool around with in the back shed.

http://www.biography.com/people/william-shakespeare-9480323

This site says;

There are two primary sources that provide historians with a basic outline of his life. One source is his work—the plays, poems and sonnets—and the other is official documentation such as church and court records. However, these only provide brief sketches of specific events in his life and provide little on the person who experienced those events.

If you applied today's level of corruption to that era, and surely it would have been even worse (no security cameras, no forensics, not even decent guns or reliable gunpowder) then what's to say that Mr Shakespeare didn't slip a few sly bucks to the officials, the clergy, the top brass of the day who ran the competitions etc, so that he'd get the top prize.
I have nothing against the man. I don't mind some of his poetry and works. But let's not be shouting and angry. It makes sense.
It's possible there were far better stuff, better works, better writing, less vocal Romeo's and Juliets, than William witnessed or created.

Maybe there were others of such brilliance, that they made the works of William Shakespeare look like firelighting material, or the equivalent of sales brochures of the day. I wonder if young William's mum didn't accidentally screw up some wads of his other works to feed the flames under the stone fireplace kindling?

Maybe there was a Midwinter Day's Folly?

If this did happen, and say, for argument's sake, William Shakespeare's works were comparatively bad quality, then his overly shrill and emotional plays and poems might have been similar to today's extremely amateur work.

Imagine if Mr W Shakespeare was a newsreader today, and while OK, his work wasn't the best of the times.

It would go something like;

"...in further news that has been a terrible world wide calamity! Thousands, if not millions were slightly injured (if only from annoyance) after they were running slightly late when their trains or buses or taxi didn't arrive on time! There has been no response from officials at this time (probably still spending the bribes from my church poetry prize winnings) and phone calls to the transport embassy has met with stone walling silence"

Yes, maybe if Shakespeare were slid into this world we inhabit in 2014, the quality and attitude of his works would have been laughed out of London Town.
That's all I'm theorizing about. That's all I'm trying to say.

Has The Thames changed?

That is really the question - not the quality of Shakespeare's work.

Sparky