SHAKESPEARE/OXFORD: A MATTER OF GRACE

A MATTER OF GRACE

THE IDENTITY OF DE VERE AS SHAKESPEARE

                                                                                © by E.L. Miller, 2012

                If, in one word, I could with grace define,

            Those qualities his genius did possess,

            That word needs be so elegant and fine,

            That he himself did use, as tho’ ‘twere his.

            That very word must needs as well apply

            To any candidate who’d claim his fame;

            As genius of such stamp seld passes by:

            The word must be especially used by him.

            After much study, that word is now come clear,

            A simple word, a word that tells us much;

            It’s, too, the heart-root word of Ed de Vere,

            Of equal worth with Honor, Faith, and such.

                 Attend, the word I now pronounce, in place,

                 It e.ver was and e.ver will be ‘Grace.’

                         “GRACE” COUNT COMPARISONS:

All forms of the word “grace” : Shakespeare Concordance – Open Source

                All-disgraced (1)

                Disgrace (55)

                Disgrace’s (1)

                Disgraced (17

                Disgraceful (1)

                Disgraces (5)

                Grace (595)

                Grace’s (22)

                Graced (14)

                Graceful (7)

                Gracefully (1)

                Graceless (6)

                Graces (49)

                Well-graced (1)

APPROXIMATELY 30  MORE “GRACE” WORDS IN SONNETS AND POEMS

EPIDICUM – 6 USES OF GRACES – 2,327 WORD COUNT

DE VERE POEMS – 7 GRACE – 4,000 WORLD COUNT (“officially” credited)

IN PRISON PENT –16 GRACE – 11,356 WORD COUNT – ALL “ANOMOS POEMS”

IN PRISON PENT – 12 GRACE -- 8,719 WORLD COUNT (IPP/only)

IN THE SONNETS – 16 GRACE – 17,551 WORD COUNT

IN COMPLETE IGNOTO – 48 GRACE-  37, 500 WORD COUNT.

There are 957,428 total word count in Shax’s writings

                There are 617 results for GRACE

                                                vs

There are 270,757 total words in Spenser’s Fairey Queene

                There are 164 results for GRACE

All forms of the word “grace” : Shakespeare Concordance – Open Source

A NOTE ON “THE TIRESOME PUNS ON GRACE”

& THE IMPORTANCE OF GRACE

R.A. Bond in his is book, The Complete Work of John Lyly, posits without any genuine proof, that John Lyly was the author of the Funeral Oration and Elegy which declares, on its cover, and again on the first inside page, to be written by Infelice Academico Ignoto. John Lyly, it will be recalled, became famous for his book, Euphues in England (1580)—which was dedicated to his mentor, if not master, Lord Oxford, Edward de Vere. In making his untenable claim, Bond did however stumble onto a characteristic of our ‘Ignoto’ whom we have identified as Edward de Vere. The reader need merely substitute the name of de Vere in the sentence below—to get our point of the use of the word “grace”, not whether  Bond found it tiresome or not. Bond wrote, comparing Lyly’s usage with Ignoto’s and their supposed common use of, as he says:

.  .tiresome puns on ‘grace’ and ‘Anglia’

                                     (pp. 511, 513) Bond, pp. 83                                                                       

Bond apparently did not know his Shakespeare very well and, had he but turned to a concordance of Shakespeare, he would have had a real complaint for the tiresome use of “grace” not only by Shakespeare but by Edward de Vere in his own and other personas of ‘Anomos’ and ‘Ignoto’ as well as others.

Bond, of course, had reference to “tiresome puns on ‘grace’” in Ignoto’s Funeral Oration and unnamed Elegy for Queen Elizabeth. Here is one of the only two references Bond gives from Ignoto’s Epicedium:

In a word, she enjoyed so much grace, as all the graces possessed not together; and he that had the grace to see her grace, accompted it his happiness to be so graced.  (Bond, pp. 511)

as to ‘Anglia’, Bond cites Ignoto’s remarks that:

hee only wonderful in an Angle, She famous in the worlds fayre Anglia [another word for England]

Did Shakespeare ever make play on the word ‘angle’? The answer is yes. In The Tempest Shakespeare speaks of “the angle of the isle.  .” Angle, of course, is the name of the early English people (the Angles) who gave their name also to the word ‘England,’ as its etymological basis. So the isle is England and “angle of the isle” plays off of this.

Bond gives no examples from Lyly at all. It is perhaps, most interest of all, as the reader shall soon see in our statistical examination of ‘grace’, that the two plays of Lyly for which we could get concordances, handily, uniquely (of all the other concordances examined) does not use the word ‘grace’ at all!

Shakespeare’s use and puns on grace

Turning to Shakespeare’s use of and puns on “grace” in his poems we find:

When sighs and groans and tears may grace the fashion of her disgrace.     

(Lucrece, ln 1319)

And arts with thy sweet graces graces be.  

(Sonnet, 79)

Both grace and faults are loved of more and less;

Thou makest faults graces that to thee resort  

(Sonnet, 96)

Their purposed trim

Pierced not his grace, but were all graced by him.  Love. Comp., ln 119

Thy grace being graced causes all disgrace in me

Passionate Pilgrim, ln 36

The number of entries for ‘grace’ in Shakespeare’s entire works are almost staggering, not to even speak of derivative words (gracious, gracefully, graciously, etc.). By comparison, for example, to Spenser’s work Faerie Queene, which it ought be recalled, is rooted in chivalry and knighthood and would be expected (in this writer’s view) to be far more larded with such terms admitting of easy and conventional use of the term grace. This is not the case.      

We will look at puns on ‘grace’ shortly, but first we must underscore that ‘grace’ was not just a word to Shakespeare/Oxford, it existed in the most exalted states, with Virtue and Honor, even unto Godliness. And yet, too, it was a very toy to bandy about in almost unashamed irreverence.

                                   THE IMPORTANCE OF GRACE

The importance of ‘grace’ at the outset needs be known far exceeds an unconscious use of a “favorite word.” Rather, we have an especial word in ‘grace,’ a word that is shibboleth to the heart and soul of the man. Grace exists in Shakespeare’s Parthenon of Virtues, along with Honesty, Honor, Beauty, Health and Conscience, it is the all of all:

To whom in all this presence speaks your grace?

To thee, that thou hast nor honesty nor grace

                                                                    Hen.lll, i 3 54

No less than life, with grace, health, beauty,

                                                                    Lear, i l 59

Conscience and grace, honor, to the profoundest pit!                                                   Hamlet, iii 4 144

. . . all the grace,

Which makes her both the heart and place

Of general wonder. . .                    Pericles iii 4                                                                    (Cerimon’s house)

Below is the entire snatch of dialog from Pericles:

In music, letters; who hath gain'd
Of education all the grace,
Which makes her both the heart and place
Of general wonder. But, alack,
That monster envy, oft the wrack
 

One versed in the verse of Lord Oxford, probably would involuntarily recall another instance, in young Edward’s poetry, where mention is made of the skills that need be taught to create that all important ‘grace’. In his The Tears of Fancy, we read a series of queries:

                                Who taught thee first to sigh, alas, my Heart?

                                Who taught thy tongue to woeful words of plaint?

                                Who filled your eyes with tears…

and we come to the first “punch line”:

                                Above the rest in court who gave thee grace?

                                Who made thee strive in honor to be best?

                                                                                Chiljin, p. 180

Indeed, grace makes the beloved, as we learn in Pericles, that is one who is properly instructed, “the heart and place/Of general wonder.” So amazing is the power of grace.

And, yes, one can imagine the obverse, as well. For such a man, who deeply holds ‘grace’ in highest honor and esteem, nothing could be worse than the disgrace of grace. In Edward’s letters we find that is just how he felt when he returned from abroad in 1576 and found rumors of his just-had-a-baby-wife, implicated in dishonoring his own grace. Pieced to the heart that she had become “the fable of the world”, his own deeply hurt feeling is encompassed in the words he says about other things, too, that so discontented him: “I will not blaze nor publish until it please me.” As to his wife he willingly will be “rid of her cumber’ and the “molestations” he has had to endure, “which made her disgraced, the world raised suspicion openly…’ (Chiljin, p. 25, April 27, 1576

In Prison Pent

Turning to In Prison pent, we note the very first poem of Anomos indicates that he is of same mind as "Shakespeare". In the first poem of In Prison Pent, a sonnet, Anomos opens his book of verse, with the following:

                Me, neither nature hath a poet made,

                Nor love of glory mov'd to learn the trade,

                Nor thirst of gold persuaded for to write;

                For nature's graces are to fine for me. . .

And, in the very next poem he speaks of his love; to give her the highest praise possible is to only to speak of her:

                Thrice threefold graces her alone befell,

                From her do flow the streams that water me."

For his suffering from unrequited love he speaks of one who has to bide "her stay apace,/And hope for better grace."

Praising his love again, he speaks of, "In none, but her, all graces friendly meet."

Indeed, Anomos cries out, in his conflict, for there is a kind of war ‘twixt grace and ruth:

                His plea was such as each man might decry,

                For grace and ruth were read in either eye."

 and again,

                For grace, sweet grace thy name doth sound.

                Yet ah! in thee no grace is found."

He fears of his love that , "Some braver youth will sue to thee for grace."

        GRACE USAGE AND WORD COUNT OTHER WRITERS

EPIDICUM – 6 USES OF GRACES – 2,327 WORD COUNT                                                   0.00257

DE VERE POEMS – 7 GRACE – 4,000 WORLD COUNT (“officially” credited)                      0.00175

IN PRISON PENT –16 GRACE – 11,356 WORD COUNT – ALL “ANOMOS POEMS”           0.00140

IN PRISON PENT – 12 GRACE -- 8,719 WORLD COUNT (IPP/only)                                    0.00137

IN THE SONNETS – 16 GRACE – 17,551 WORD COUNT                                                    0.00091  

IN COMPLETE IGNOTO – 48 GRACE-  37, 500 WORD COUNT.                                         0.00128

There are 957,248 total words in SHAX’s complete works.

             There are 617 results for Grace                            0.00064

                                                                                     

There are 270,757 total words in SPENSER’S FQ

            There are 164 results for Grace                             0.00060

ASTROPHEL AND STELLA – 30 GRACE – 17221 WORD COUNT (SIDNEY)                0.00174

SHEPHEARDES CALENDAR – 8 GRACE – 17489 WORD COUNT (SPENSER)            0.00045

SAPPHO AND PHAO OR ENDIMION – 0 GRACE – ZERO WORD COUNT (LYLY)      0.00000

4 MARLOW PLAYS – 30 GRACE –  71,411 WORD COUNT (C.MARLOW)                 0.00042

                DR. FAUSTUS, JEW OF MALTA,, TAMBURLAINE I, & II

PARADISE LOST/REGAINED – 45 GRACE – 98,678 WORD COUNT (MILTON)        0.00045   

EVERYMAN/EPIONE – 12 GRACE – 80.588 WORD COUNT (JONSON)                    0.00014

ALCHEMIST/BARTHOLOMEW – 61 GRACE – 79,337 WORD COUNT (JONSON)   0.00076

    (BOTH PLAYS ABOVE HAVE CHARACTER NAMED GRACE OR CALLED SO)

The reader can easily consult the text used here, the “official” early de Vere poems can be found at the Shakespeare Oxford Society website; In Prison Pent can be found at www.ericmillerworks.com along with the Elegy and Oration of Queen Elizabeth by Infelice Academico Ignoto, as well as , The Complete Poems of Ignoto. Concordances can be found on-line, for all the indicated works. Osgood Concordance of Spenser.

  

                                                                ********

  

Note: from Encyclopedia Britannica (2005 edition)

Angle/Anglia

England in the 5th century AD. The Angles gave their name to England, as well as to the word Englisc, used even by Saxon writers to denote their vernacular tongue. The Angles are first mentioned by Tacitus (1st century AD) as worshipers of the deity Nerthus.

Concordances for all cited authors at:

The Victorian Literary Studies Archive (Hyper-Concordance

Mitsuharu Matsuoka, Graduate School of Languages and Cultures, Nagoya University, Japan

Pasted from <http://victorian.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/concordance.html

OTHER COMPARISONS

Sidney,

Astrophel and Stella

Of course, examples of punning on the word 'grace' is not difficult to find in writer of the period. Take Sidney for example, in his Astrophel and Stella with the following statistics:

Sidney, Philip : Astrophel and Stella

Total text lines : 2464

Total word count : 17221

Query result : 30

"well sugrred lies /That her grace gracious makes the wrong that . . ."

"naked shew/Might winne some grace in your sweet grace arraid;"

"late by your best-graced grace, I caught at one of them"
 

Spenser, Edmund : The Shepheardes Calender

Total text lines : 2736

Total word count : 17489

Query result : 8

In Shepheardes Calender, Spenser makes all in all rather conventional, or orutine uses of 'grace'.

Perhaps most interestingly, the is NO 'GRACE' at all in John Lyly's Sappho and Phao or Endemion

Marlowe, Christopher : The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus

Total text lines : 2089

Total word count : 12801

Query result : 10

Marlow, too,  makes mostly pedestrian uses of the word 'grace'.

Marlowe, Christopher : The Jew of Malta

Total text lines : 3635

Total word count : 20544

Query result : 2

Marlowe, Christopher : Tamburlaine the Great, Part II

Total text lines : 2999

Total word count : 19316

Query result : 8

Spenser, Edmund : The Faerie Queene

Total text lines : 34258

Total word count : 270757

Query result : 164

Strangely, it seems, Spenser seldom uses 'grace' as an address,

JOHN MILTON—PARADICE LOST

Total text lines : 10948

Total word count : 82859

Query result : 39

Milton, John : Paradise Regained

Total text lines : 2164

Total word count : 15908

Query result : 6

Shakespeare, William : All (5,742 KB)

Total text lines : 128676

Total word count : 957428

Query result : 617