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The signatures of William Shakespeare
#1

The signatures of William Shakespeare
This is something I find amusing.  There are only a handful of examples of the handwriting of William Shakespeare ie., his signatures on some documents.  There are no letters or any other documents of any kind written by him in his own fair hand. 

Here are the handful of signatures which have been found:


[Image: signatures-feat.png]

Strange but true. 

I did some research several years ago into the education he would have received had he attended a King's school and back then they taught students how to read but when it came to writing, because they had no paper or pens, they taught them to "write" orally.  In other words, the students spelled out words orally and had little or no practice in actually writing them down on paper.  There's no record, in fact, of Shakespeare having attended school at all.  Queen Elizabeth issued a decree at the time that the first child of any person with a trade had to take up the occupation of his father, which means that the explanation of William Shakespeare slaying a deer is that he was getting leather to be used in his father's glove-making business.

He then moved to London where he lived in the home of a wig maker and a taylor or tyre (attire) maker before becoming involved in the underworld trade in imported leather which resulted in legal proceedings being take out against him after a breach of the peace. 

Many years later he returned to Stratford where he bought a big house and then died, leaving his second best bed to his wife. 

While in London, he wrote plays and poems which are considered to be the greatest examples English literature.
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#2

The signatures of William Shakespeare
He missed his calling. That's "doctor handwriting" if ever I saw it.
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#3

The signatures of William Shakespeare
(05-24-2019, 05:55 PM)Deltabravo Wrote: This is something I find amusing.  There are only a handful of examples of the handwriting of William Shakespeare ie., his signatures on some documents.  There are no letters or any other documents of any kind written by him in his own fair hand. 

Here are the handful of signatures which have been found:


[Image: signatures-feat.png]

Strange but true. 

I did some research several years ago into the education he would have received had he attended a King's school and back then they taught students how to read but when it came to writing, because they had no paper or pens, they taught them to "write" orally.  In other words, the students spelled out words orally and had little or no practice in actually writing them down on paper.  There's no record, in fact, of Shakespeare having attended school at all.  Queen Elizabeth issued a decree at the time that the first child of any person with a trade had to take up the occupation of his father, which means that the explanation of William Shakespeare slaying a deer is that he was getting leather to be used in his father's glove-making business.

He then moved to London where he lived in the home of a wig maker and a taylor or tyre (attire) maker before becoming involved in the underworld trade in imported leather which resulted in legal proceedings being take out against him after a breach of the peace. 

Many years later he returned to Stratford where he bought a big house and then died, leaving his second best bed to his wife. 

While in London, he wrote plays and poems which are considered to be the greatest examples English literature.

There's very little of his signatures or writings  because when he wrote the plays the actors memorized their lines and wrote them on a long scroll which they rolled around two wooden dowels like this......


[Image: papyrus-scroll-wooden-rods-2029.jpg]

Hence....they had the "role" of Shylock or Hamlet, or whatever. 

As with all playwrights going back to Aristophanes, Shakespeare would have been in the theatre during the process of creating his plays.  Playwrights constantly change lines and rework the parts because writing a play on a piece of paper and perfroming it on a stage are two different mediums.  That's why it's called a play "wright",  because the play is wrought and shaped like a piece of iron.   It's utterly ridiculous that some people think Shakespeare didn't write any of the plays, that it was Edward De Vere or some mysterious other person.   A playwright doesn't just write the play anonymously and send it out to be performed.  Shakespeare did work together with a couple of other writers on maybe Timon of Athens and a couple of others but computers can distinguish which are Shakespear's lines and which are not. 

Shakespeare was also an actor and any decent Shakespearian actor will tell you that the words fall off the tongue easily and beautifully because another actor wrote them.
                                                         T4618
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