Eighty True Authors
So! Now we’ve seen seven of my Shakespeare posts. The results, as seen in the statistics, are very mixed.
It started off great. My first post, Is Shakespeare God? got 378 views in a couple of weeks. Well, that kind of miracle you will see when the title of your post is so intriguing or provocative.
But after that there was a sharp downturn, one post coming in as low as 12 views total.
With my seventh post, Shakespeare and Verdi, I expected a tidal wave of views. Why, it’s the best thing I’ve done here! It leaps into another world, a different dimension - higher, unbelievably beautiful and breathtaking! Over and over again I savor the text, soak in the videos, soar with the music!
Well, Shakespeare and Verdi is now up to 66 views. Big deal! And to think I sent the post out, by way of my email contacts, to dozens of folks. That helped a little. But will any post ever outdo the 378 for Is Shakespeare God?
Let’s try this one. Here is the hottest Shakespeare subject of all. There is no escaping it: Immediately upon letting on that you are a big Shakespeare fan, you will hear “Yes, but did he really write all those plays?”
Isn’t that true? You say you like Shakespeare? One and all - everybody - will hit you with the Authorship Controversy. When it comes to Shakespeare, it’s the most common question. “Did he really write that stuff, or was it someone else?”
Why, even here on this platform I found 25 posts on the Authorship Question! And that’s before I gave up, tired of scrolling down a long, long list. Look what I found here on Substack…
“Shakespeare Identified”
“THE OVERWHELMING PROOF: Francis Bacon Wrote Shakespeare”
“Who Wrote Shakespeare? An AI Debate”
Long, long before the advent of AI I have been a Shakespeare fanatic. Sixty years if you must know. And all that time I have been an avid supporter of the man from Stratford. So strongly do I feel about this that I wrote, some years ago, a very passionate poem.
Oh, I know that many very prominent and remarkable people oppose the “illiterate butcher boy from the dirty market town.” Yes, famous scientists and writers, artists and poets such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James, Walt Whitman, Sigmund Freud, Sir Derek Jacobi, Malcolm X… Even Helen Keller and Mark Twain! What? Charlie Chaplin too? That breaks my heart.
Yes, I know that every one of them is a genius. Still, I will write a poem so ardent, so fiery, that every genius cited here will turn away, melting from the glorious sun that is William Shakespeare. He is the greatest genius ever to walk this earth. Haven’t I provided proof of that in my first post Is Shakespeare God?
But this poem is more than just passionate. It is very funny. Guaranteed you will smile. It is even a bit bawdy at the beginning. I hope that will be excused.
Anyway, here goes…
This link takes us to a Canva presentation. Canva is a great platform just as is Substack. However, both have shortcomings. On Canva there is no audio but they allow great graphics. Substack? Well, we’ll get into that later.
But here is a link to a YouTube presentation which has not only music, but a great many different graphics.