The discussion in one of the threads on Shaksper had turned to Measure for Measure, and the specific question of why St. Luke’s – where Mariana’s “moated grange” was located – was named St. Luke’s. Theories ranged from the idea that the title of the play (“Measure for Measure”) came out of the Bible’s Luke, to the idea that Luke was associated with doctors, and thus fit well with the “disease” metaphor of the play. Although I had not actually considered or cared what St. Luke’s represented – I had already presented my paper and it had been accepted for publication – I took a few minutes to see if I could figure out whether my theory could tell me what St. Luke was supposed to represent.
Since my theory suggests that the “moated grange” refers to Lyford Grange (where Edmund Campion was captured) and symbolizes Jesuits, I checked to see if I could connect anyone named “Luke” to these concepts. A quick search turned up “Luke Kirby,” a Catholic priest who stood trial with Campion and was executed along with Thomas Cottam, brother of a Stratford schoolmaster whom Shakespeare might have known (and who, if a number of well-respected scholars are correct, was instrumental in getting young Will up to Lancashire, where he may have gone by the name William Shakeshafte and may have encountered Campion). Kirby obviously was not a Saint in Shakespeare’s day, but he was eventually canonized in 1970.
I watched a few posts go by, and then contacted the Moderator and asked him if he would post my paper on his website. I also included my first contribution to the thread, which included the Luke Kirby theory, as well as a summary of the rest of my theory as to Measure for Measure.
The Moderator posted my post, but the paper didn’t go up for a couple of days. In the interim, a dismissive comment came in from Nathaniel. I debated the subject with Nathaniel, receiving supportive comments from Kent and Rosaline. After a few days, Armado burst upon the scene, making a number of rather derisive comments, including calling the paper a “fantasy concoction” and accusing Kent and me of “extreme gullibility” for supporting it.
I responded to Armado patiently, and then found myself writing a lengthy response every day for a period of nearly two weeks, while he himself wrote several posts per day, all of which completely dwarfed my posts. It was clear that something had touched a nerve; in his second post he was speaking of “Krause-style garbage,” and by the third, he was speaking of things that I might do in my “more idiotic moments.” His main point seemed to be that because coincidences often happen, the connections that form the fabric of my theory must all be coincidences, and thus the theory fails.
I’ve collected his worst arguments and mistakes of facts here .
Armado’s critique – such as it is – along with a few sniping remarks by a couple of other Shaksper listmembers is the only negative review that I have received to date of my paper. As a consequence, it makes a useful focal point for my elucidation and defense of the paper on this website.
I gave everybody Shakespearean pseudonyms on the theory that most contributors would prefer to have their privacy protected. I thought I saw some resemblances between several of the contributors and characters from Love’s Labour’s Lost, the Shakespeare play with the most overtly Spanish connections, so I gave them those names. Names of other contributors were either randomly chosen or chosen to reflect what seemed to be some characteristic of their postings. If you were a contributor and do not like the name I’ve given to you, let me know and I will most likely change it.
It might come down to how you define “win.” If the question is who prevailed as a matter of logic – as judged by any objective standard of logic – I won hands down. I committed no logical errors, whereas Armado could barely complete a sentence without committing one or more.
On the other hand, the weakness of the opposition does not prove the strength of the argument; hence, this website. My hope is that serious Shakespeare scholars and editors will read the article, and comment on it – one way or another – in their work.
As mentioned, I’ve come up with a list of 10 serious errors made by Armado; they can be viewed here.
Remember, there are two very different arguments here. Armado did not come up with a single serious counter-argument to the Hamlet argument.
But one key point that Armado never addresses is the starting point of the entire analysis: What is the likelihood that Shakespeare would have included a few references to debasement in Hamlet, and worked a debasement metaphor into the plot of Measure for Measure itself? To answer this, we have to consider where Shakespeare was on the spectrum from “purely an artist who simply would not have polluted his work with references to current economic issues” to “someone who might have inserted an economic metaphor here and there.”
I don’t have time to slog through 200 pages worth of posts. Tell me what happened.
If Armado’s argument is so bad, why do you spend so much time bashing it?
What’s with all the Shakespearean names?
So who won the debate on Shaksper?
If you had to identify one point on which you “prevailed” what would it be?