The Free Thinker
A completely
independent alternative cultural magazine
Issue No. 21 in English
(and Italian)
Spring 2009
A web journal of
miscellanous articles and poems,
harvested and taken care
of from the web
or just written
spontaneously.
Contents of this issue
:
The Marlowe-Webster
Connection
Yet Another Effort at a
Summary of the Shakespeare Problems
Some Oxfordian Comments
Kipling Read Anew
Great Expectations
Per il centenario del mio
padre Aurelio Lanciai
An Effort at a Brief
Summary of the Tibetan Problem
These articles are
generally to be found on our webblogg:
"The Free
Thinker" on Internet : http://hem.fyristorg.com/aurelio/thinker.html
This is the 201st
publication of the Letnany publishers.
Copyright © C. Lanciai
with friends
Gothenburg, Sweden, March
31st 2009
The Marlowe-Webster
connection
by Christian Lanciai
(A collection and
summary of my articles on "Webster read anew" of autumn 2008.)
Is
there such a connection? There certainly is, Webster definitely relating more
to Marlowe than to Shakespeare. The challenge is to define the connection.
While
only some decades ago we knew practically nothing about John Webster, we now
know for sure that he was the son of a coach maker of some social position. It
is therefore logical to assume that he had an easy way in society and could do
what he wanted. He entered the Middle Temple as a law student in 1598 at around
20 years of age. In 1634 Thomas Heywood makes mention of him as no longer among
the living. Although this is a wealth of information compared to what was known
20 years ago, it’s still not very much, and John Webster remains one of the
commonest of names and an ideal name at that for someone needing a sobriquet to
hide in.
The
rest of the information we have about him amounts to approximately the
following: As a name it appears on stage from nowhere and disappears into
nowhere. It is "believed" that he was born "about" 1580 and
ended his life "somewhere around" 1625.
Another
Webster problem is the same that we have about Shakespeare but even more
acutely so. To our knowledge, Shakspere never went to Italy but still had
intimate knowledge of special, especially geographical, conditions in Italy, which
has led any number of not only Italian scholars to conclude, that Shakespeare
must have lived some time if not even longer periods in Italy; and if Shakspere
never went to Italy, then Shakspere could not have written Shakespeare.
Concerning John Webster, this is even more a thing to wonder at. If he was the
son of a regular London coach maker and studying law, the chances are even less
here that he ever visited Italy; and still there are instances in "The
White Devil" and "The Duchess of Malfi" which convey startling
local knowledge of Italian places and characters. Here are two typical
examples:
The
ducal families of Medici and Orsini are historical families and leaders of the
Renaissance politics in the 16th century. The main leading male characters of
"The White Devil" are the dukes Francisco de Medici and Bracciano de
Orsini. (The duke Orsini also visited Queen Elizabeth’s court in 1601 and
became the "duke Orsino" character in "Twelfth Night",
which was staged to his honour.) In "The White Devil" Orsini plays
tennis in Rome and shifts his shirt at Camillo’s place, who is the husband of
Vittoria Corombona (in actual history Vittoria Accoramboni), who Orsini wants
for his mistress. Such a plot with such details is not just made up but must
have been drawn from actual intimate knowledge – Francisco de Medici knows that
Orsini shifts his shirt after tennis at Vittoria’s place (act II scene 1, lines
52-53).
Another
example is the famous "echo" scene in "The Duchess of
Malfi", (act V scene 3). Delio introduces the scene by describing the
location, the ruins of an ancient abbey that has been turned into a
fortification by the river with a wall of a cloister on the other side of the
river, which results in a most astoundingly clear and startling echo. In order
to be able to describe this place in Milan into such detail, the poet simply
must have been there on the spot himself to experience that echo.
The
third problem or phenomenon of Webster is that he is even more marlovian than
Shakespeare is. His own preface to his plays couldn’t be more marlovian, and
you have in his plays very marlovian traits all over: the theatre of cruelty,
the splendid language booming all over with exploding fantasies of metaphors
and parables, a character like Flamineo in "The White Devil" is like
a brother of Black Will in "Arden of Feversham", and the poetry is as
brilliant throughout as anything written under the names of Marlowe and
Shakespeare, while others, like Beaumont & Fletcher, Dekker, Jonson and the
others fall short and are something completely different.
Already
in 2002 Alisa Beaton voiced the suspicion that John Webster was Marlowe.
"The White Devil" appeared somewhere after 1608 at the time when
Beaumont & Fletcher made their breakthrough and turned the Shakespeare
tragedies unfashionable. John Webster could have been an effort of the poet to
continue writing tragedies but under another name for some reason or another,
maybe to stress that they were non-Shakespeare tragedies and therefore
something new, maybe that Shakspere’s company no longer would stage tragedies,
or maybe just for security.
Here
is another interesting detail: In act V scene 3 in "The White Devil"
Flamineo makes a statement which marlovians must observe: "They dissemble,
as some men do that live within compass of the verge." (lines 54-55). It’s
an off-hand statement of no real consequence to the play and could be
disregarded as meaning nothing, but it’s still there and could also be
interpreted as a slip of the tongue of the poet as he
actually implies that
people aware of being within the verge tend to be liars – it could be seen,
from a marlovian point of view, as the denouncement of Coroner Danby –
especially in view of the fact that it’s a clear reference, not to an Italian,
but to a specifically London condition.
One
of the main characteristics of Marlowe’s playwrightship is that none of his
plays resemble each other – there are never repetitions, whereas Jonson and
Beaumont & Fletcher constantly repeat themselves. The same lack of repetition
dominates all the Shakespeare works. The chronicles (especially the cycle from
Edward II through Edward III down to Richard III) are a series of course, but
also here each one offers new innovations and characteristics and differs from
all the others. Webster’s "The White Devil" and "The Duchess of
Malfi" are a couple belonging together, but they are still also completely
different in character, plot and psychology, although there are many
superficial common denominators. In the same way, many of the Shakespeare
sonnets were written as couples complementing each other, one answering and
being a consequence of the other.
My
main point is the view that Marlowe, Shakespeare and Webster have too much in
common for the idea of the three being one poet to be easily refuted, whereas
all the others, like Jonson, Beaumont & Fletcher, Dekker, Chapman and the
lot have almost nothing in common with them – they are other poets, all of
them, for sure.
Some
other plays are traditionally ascribed to Webster, one of them being
"Appius and Virginia" from "about" 1625, perhaps the last
swansong of the Shakespearean (Marlovian-Baconian-Oxfordian) drama. (Let’s
never forget that Bacon completed the "Edward II-Richard III-series"
with "Henry VII", the only one missing in the cycle up to "Henry
VIII".)
My
most inveterate Baconian friend claims not only the Shakespeare authorship but
also those of Marlowe, Webster, Robert Burton and, of course, Miguel de
Cervantes for Bacon, Cervantes (Don Quixote) having been originally written in
English, of course, or else he could not have made such a good translation into
Spanish. The further Baconian claims include that he was one of at least two
sons of the Virgin Queen, Robert Dudley being the father, the other son being
Essex, of course. The evidence for all this is of course only circumstantial
but nonetheless completely clearcut.
Against
this you can pose Giordano Bruno’s statement of the Queen
being impotent for
some physical defect, however he might have found that out. Another claim
(marlovian) is that Marlowe was the bastard son of the Virgin Queen with
William Parr, the younger brother of Catherine Parr, who was such a success
with the dancing ladies at Elizabeth’s court, and with Elizabeth herself, who
always honoured him. By her directives he is supposed to have placed the baby
with a reliable family at Canterbury, where William Parr had the best possible
connections with exiled huguenots from France, to which group Catherine
Marlowe, Christopher’s Canterbury mother, belonged. Elizabeth and William Parr
then secretly saw to it that young Christopher got the best possible education
and at least a good start of a brilliant career, until he goofed it all up by
becoming an atheist.
At
least data like these should be worth investigating, since there might be at
least something to cause all that smoke.
---
The
end of the story of Vittoria Corombona (the main character in "The White
Devil") occurred in 1585, when she was murdered in Padua at the age of 28,
famous for her beauty, the duke Orsini dying shortly afterwards the same year,
while the story did not come out internationally until in the version by Ludwig
Tieck in 1843, which then was translated the world over. The Orsini-Corombona
controversy was locally famous in Italy, however, and must still have been a
topic of much discussion about the time when Marlowe supposedly went to Italy after
the Deptford deception. A.D.Wraight in her research makes a very definite point
about the Orsini-Marlowe connection.
The
Orsini character, an extremely adventurous fellow, who fought the Turks at
Malta and Lepanto, is well rendered in the Webster play and a convincing
portrait of the real lover of Vittoria. Also the Francesco de Medici character
is correct – he was in fact the brother of Orsini’s first wife Isabella, but
these two plots occurred in very different periods, the marriage with Isabella
taking place in 1560, her murder in 1576 after her infidelity – the lover
Troilo was murdered shortly afterwards. There is nothing about her infidelity
in the Webster play. Also the pope is wrongly dated – Paul IV was in fact his
enemy but as early as 1555. In the play, consequently, different plots from
different periods of Orsini’s life are pasted together placing Vittoria, his
most famous plot, in the centre of the composition. Vittoria did have a brother
Flaminio, who was murdered together with her by Lodovico – this story is true.
Since
the characters of Francesco de Medici, Bracchiano de Orsini and Vittoria
are
so true to reality, it’s easy to assume the Flaminio character is also, if he
were not so definitely marlovian.
Concerning
the claims of the Virgin Queen’s disputed virginity by some Baconians,
Oxfordians and Marlites, Baconians claiming Bacon as a son by her with
Leicester, Oxfordians claiming Oxford to be her lover and father of Essex with
her, and some Marlites proposing that William Parr was one of her lovers and
father of Christopher Marlowe, scientists finally seem to agree on one thing:
it’s impossible to settle whether she was a virgin or not. One argument against
her possible motherhood of diverse bastards, however, is the fact, that it
would have been extremely difficult and next to impossible for her to get away
with one or more childbirths as an established Virgin Queen, which of course
doesn’t finally exclude the possibility, although it makes it highly unlikely.
In
this context, the plot of "The Duchess of Malfi" is interesting, as
the Duchess actually gets away with three childbirths although she is carefully
guarded by her jealous brothers who at any cost are bent on excluding the
possibility for her to ever get another husband. Even when they finally learn
about her three bastards, it’s impossible for them to manage to find out who
her secret husband is although he is a regular at court. I don’t know how much
of this is taken from the actual reality of the Duchess Giovanna d’Aragona of
Amalfi, granddaughter of King Ferdinand I of Naples, the intrigue of the play
having occurred somewhere around 1510, but the persons of the play, like those
of "The White Devil", are basically all real. IF it proves that the
story of the Duchess’ three secret bastards were not part of her true story,
then possible parallels to the Virgin Queen and her possible escapades become
interesting.
Personally,
though, I believe the Duchess’ story in the play to be true, especially since
Antonio di Bologna in fact was her secret second husband.
The
sources of the play are the same as "The White Devil",
"Othello", "Romeo and Juliet", "The Merchant of
Venice" and other typical Shakespeare Italian plays and treated in the
same way, being made over to suit the poet’s sense of form and architecture,
dramatic intrigue and effects – the craftsmanship of all these Italian plays is
identical.
What
strikes one more intrigued about the Webster plays, however, is the fact that
he drives the most Shakespearean (Marlovian) of all problem complexes to a
higher pitch than ever – the predicament of the exile martyrdom. "The
White Devil" even opens up with the one exclaimed word
"Banished!" In "The Duchess of Malfi" the exile situation is
brought to the perhaps extremest crisis in any Shakespeare/Webster play, as the
Duchess is driven into poverty and beggary by her cruel brothers, who even
arrange for her to be exiled from where she has sought a sanctuary at Loreto
far away near Ancona. Her husband Antonio is also bereft of everything,
excommunicated and exiled to Milan and left with absolutely nothing, while his
friends in vain try to petition the cardinal, who gives over his possessions to
his own mistress.
It
is to be observed that these two Webster plays are the only ones published in
his name without any collaborator. His collaborators were many, and all his
collaborations are mainly superficial comedies and idyllic trifles, while these
two great tragedies stand out as the only ones after Shakespeare to match him
and Marlowe, both in quality, poetic beauty, dreadful intrigue and dramatic
suspense. Nothing of this is found in the other Webster collaborations.
("Appius and Virginia", discussed further down, also has the same
Italian Shakespeare sources.)
There
is nothing at all to indicate that Shakespeare or Webster ever had any reason
to wallow in the melancholy and problem complexes of exile – they were never
exiled themselves, while there is only person and writer of that time who fits
this situation completely – Marlowe. Oxford and Bacon also sometimes had
reasons to feel familiar with it but not as much as Marlowe after (probably)
being forced into lifelong exile from public life after May 1593 because of his
revolutionary atheism and activities not only on stage.
Marlowe
probably always collaborated with one or several colleagues, one of the first
being Thomas Kyd, with whom he probably wrote at least both "The Spanish
Tragedy" and "Arden of Feversham" – there is evidence they lived
together, Kyd having difficulty after Marlowe’s fall to explain away his
association with the suddenly very highly controversial dramatic genius. Since
Marlowe after May 1593 never again could use his own name, and since he
probably could not stop writing drama and poetry ( – a genius is a natural
force which is very difficult to interrupt by whatever means,) he would have
needed other writers to work with. Shakspere as a proper business man was
probably the ideal partner, who would smoothly keep the show going and see to
it that no questions were asked and be very discreet about Marlowe’s hand in
his plays, which he probably needed badly since he (probably) could not write
much himself.
After
Shakspere there was Webster. Since his two great tragedies are unique in his
production as the only ones without a second name, and since Marlowe is so
palpably present in them both, the second invisible name to those plays could
have been Marlowe.
Nothing
speaks more loudly about the Marlowe presence in the Shakespeare and Webster productions
than the constantly recurring tragic theme of exile veiled in unfathomable
melancholy.
Objections
here maintain that "the theme of exile is a human condition; we’re all
exiles within our own skins and minds. The task of an artist is to render that
in a concrete manner that sheds revealing light upon that eternal truth and
help us recognize our common humanity. That’s why it resonates so strongly when
used artfully in narratives, not because it’s part of an author’s
biography." (TR)
So why don’t you find it in the works of others of that time? You’ll have a
hard time searching for it in Jonson, Beaumont & Fletcher, Spenser, Sidney
and the others without finding anything like that melancholy profundity. You
don’t even find it in Victor Hugo, who spent 20 years in exile, or in Dante,
who was exiled for life. Dante, instead, jeers at Florence. This one mark of
identity of the Poet can’t be easily explained away.
In
my opinion, at least "The Spanish Tragedy", "Arden of
Feversham", "The White Devil" and "The Duchess of
Malfi" should be included in the Shakespeare canon as probably created at
least in parts by the same ’Shakespeare’ poet. Analysts of style object to
this, but I am very skeptic about stylometrics analyses, especially since so
many doing it arrive at different results and arrive at very obviously faulty
conclusions. I think technical analyses do not go well but fall short to the
licence of poetical creativity – they are different dimensions. How, for
instance, do you compare the prose of Bacon with the verse of Shakespeare,
since these two different genres obviously demand totally different styles and
frames of mind, even if one writer writes both? Surely you can’t compare
Bacon’s poor early efforts at Psalm poetry with the sensuality of Shakespeare.
Quote from me: "There is as much difference between, aught say "The
Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Titus Andronicus" as between
Marlowe and Webster if not even more – the variety of the Shakespeare (and
Marlowe) plays is so extended that it hardly could have been more
extreme." No one differs more in style within himself than Shakespeare.
I
am no stylometric expert and indeed no scientist at all, but I still think the
jungle of stylometrics is easier to get lost in than to find anything in. If no
one found anything but Shakespeare in Shakespeare it doesn’t have to mean that
there is nothing else to be found there. Indeed, some stylometric experts did
find others (for instance did Tom Merriam find Marlowe in "Henry V"),
which confirms my conclusion that different experts tend to reach different
results. For instance, what about all those spurious pseudo-Shakespeare plays
that actually bear his name but were rejected from the start and not even on
stylometric grounds, like "The London Prodigall", "Sir John
Oldcastle", "Thomas Lord Cromwell", "The Puritan",
"The Troublesome Reign", "Locrine" and "A Yorkshire
Tragedy"? Personally I would definitely include at least "A Yorkshire
Tragedy" in the Canon being so very much akin to "Arden of Feversham" so as to raise a definite suspicion
that they were by the same author, while you can’t deny the fact that the
others actually were published (like all the bad
quartos) in Shakespeare’s
name. And what about "Pericles"? Expertise statements vary as to
whether it was written in the beginning or in the end of Shakspere’s career,
the style in it being obviously undefinable and different from all the others
and more reminding of Marlowe than of Shakespeare. A number of the early Shakespeare
plays and the last Marlowe plays overlap each other in style, making it
difficult to decide how much of them (the early Shakespeare plays) were written
by Marlowe or by someone else. The style of "The White Devil" I find
strikingly marlovian, especially in the character of Flaminio, while "The
Duchess of Malfi" offer a definite progress like as a door-opener for a
possible continuance and further development from
the style of the Shakespeare tragedies, while I am very doubtful about the
Shakespearean qualities in "Two Noble Kinsmen", which I would regard
as on par with the other pseudo-Shakespeare plays published in that name.
Let
me come back to the personal watermark of the identity of the poet found in
such sonnets as 73 and 74, the recurring theme of melancholy exile from
"Two Gentlemen of Verona" all the way down to "The Tempest"
and again stressed in the two great tragedies under the name of Webster. You
don’t express such feelings unless you feel them and have grounds for them. You
find no cause for such possible feelings anywhere in the life of Shakspere,
whereas you do find it in the plausible reconstructed fate of Marlowe.
---
The
main problem with "Appius and Virginia" is the impossibility to have
it dated. This is more often than not the problem with most plays that
evidently had co-author(s) but more so with this one than with any other.
Traditionally, the co-author was Thomas Heywood, (who according to himself
co-authored more than 200 plays), but the dominant part is without doubt the
same voice that wrote "The White Devil" and "The Duchess of
Malfi". Most critics agree that it must have been written either in the
beginning of ’John Webster’s’ playwright activity (before 1608) or at the very
end (after 1625), which fact accurately illustrates the dating problem.
The
details about the starvation army and its arguments, however, rather definitely
fixes it to after the historical crisis with an army in Holland in
October-November 1624 under Count Mansfeld. They were sent off to Flushing
without proper supplies and eventually left in Gertruidenburg to starve. The
realistic rendering of the starving army in "Appius" and their rising
taste for mutiny corresponds exactly with the war scenes of the failed war
drama in Holland. The drama serves as a very complementary tale to that of
"The Rape of Lucrece" produced 30 years earlier. In fact, it’s a very
appropriate finale to the whole Shakespearean era of great tragedies with the
Roman ones constituting perhaps the most particular chapter of them all,
dealing with justice and politics on a universal level, which "Appius and
Virginia" also does although in a more resigned, compressed and Spartan
form than any of the earlier ones.
Since
it so obviously has more than one hand in it, I here leave the authorship
question open without comment.
Objection:
"Armies at the time were commonly left to starve – even successful ones.
England had loads of starving sailors after their defeat of the Armada in
1588."
Yes,
but the rendering of the mutinous starving army in act II is so realistic, the
commander actually having some difficulty in appeasing the troops, which he
does in an admirable way, very much reminding of Antony’s reversal of the
political situation in "Julius Caesar" by the funeral speech, which
it must have been influenced by, while the realism of the mutinous troops (not
any sailors) hardly could have been made so strong, (it’s actually perhaps the
most dynamic scene in the play,) without fresh experience of it in reality. The
only parallel to the 1624 disaster was Essex’ failure in Ireland. The
difficulty in dating this play makes speculations about this point inevitable.
There
are however some ’marlovian’ traits to be found even here. The ’banishment’
signature occurs but in the reverse – Appius makes fun of it in act I (scene 1,
38-70,) but it’s still a definite variation of the almost main Shakespearean
theme.
And
here is a typical ’marlovian’ twist:
"This of my fate in after times be spoken, I’ll break that with my
weight on which I am broken." (the last lines of act III scene 3.)
"Appius
and Virginia" was first published in 1576 by a certain "R.B."
(Richard Barnfield?) That play, however, is very inferior to the second version
printed for the first time not until 1654, almost 80 years after the first
version.
Let’s
in this context bring in the Bacons for a quick experimental investigation. The
probable production of "Appius and Virginia" coincides with Bacon’s
final years and, like so many Shakespeare plays and "The White
Devil", deals heavily with jurisdiction, which was Bacon’s main field of
experience. He was the first Shakespeare alternative candidate brought forth
200 years ago, when the first doubts rose about Will, and is still the
strongest candidate supported by massive literature and followings. He if
anyone would have been greatly concerned with the failed Dutch war and stranded
army at Getruidenburg, as every British political crisis during his age was of
the deepest concern for him, since he always had a hand in them all. His poor
efforts at religious verse, his pathetic failure of a marriage and his leaving
himself vulnerable to the envious intrigues of Buckingham and other ambitious
scoundrels in the lewd corruption circles of King
James present some quite imposing question marks actually outdoing Marlowe’s in
blatancy, since Bacon was the second most powerful and influential man in
England after the King. Baconians generally claim at least the productions of
Marlowe and Shakespeare for Bacon. In view of the fact of Ben Jonson’s close
standing with him during the final editing of the Shakespeare works, it can’t
be eliminated that Bacon had a hand in it. His concern about "concealed
poets" communicated to the King, however, was probably not a concern for
himself in view of his supremely high position. The homosexual Anthony Bacon
was Marlowe’s colleague and friend in France during the Walsingham years, and
since Francis took over the intelligence of Anthony, it’s most credible that he
also carried on the collaboration with Marlowe. Francis Bacon and Marlowe both
present some curious common traits: both were sexually unfathomable, there are
sexual mysteries about them,
both were rumoured to associate with boys, neither had any children, Bacon
would have done better unmarried like his brother, and we all know what the
Puritans thought about Marlowe. One plausible theory states that both were
undecisively bisexual. We shall never know the whole truth, but the
inter-connections between Anthony Bacon, Marlowe, Francis Bacon, Jonson and
Shakespeare speak very much for that Marlowe and Francis Bacon understood each
other and collaborated more than well.
***
The five main reasons for doubts concerning the supposed authorship of
Mr. W. Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon:
1. The total lack of any first hand evidence: There remains nothing
written by his own hand except six shaky signatures by a man who could hardly
write at all. He left not one letter behind and not one book in his will, which
indicates he died without owning a single book, while both his daughters were
illiterate, one of them marking her name with an X.
2. Although ’Shakespeare’ reveals universal erudition and intimate
knowledge of foreign countries and their local conditions, there is nothing to
indicate that W. Shakspere ever had any higher school education nor that he
ever left England.
3. No one lamented him when he died or wrote any obituary, while all
other poets who died around then were honoured with generous funeral elegies,
while his grave monument is one of the most awkward in the world – a silly
verse under a phoney statue which originally was another’s.
4. There is a number of plays published in his lifetime under his name
which clearly are far below his standard and therefore were not even considered
for inclusion in his collected works, which indicates that his name was used
when the real authors’ names were missing – there was a number of concealed
poets in his day who had reasons to avoid having their names published.
5. The Shakespeare authorship is like a direct and natural continuation
of the Marlowe authorship, which was interrupted exactly as the Shakespeare one
took over. The effort, experimental development and painstaking exercise
towards a dramatist’s maturity, which marks the authorship of Marlowe, is
clearly missing in Shakespeare, who appears to be completely accomplished
directly. This, as every author knows, is impossible.
Yet Another Effort
at a Summary of the Shakespeare Problems.
When
William Shakespeare passes away on April 23rd 1616, it is without
any public notice. He disappears without anyone seeming to care about it, while
the much younger dramatist Francis Beaumont, who passes away the same year,
enjoys remarkable honours and is buried in Westminster Abbey, bewailed by the
whole nation. After six years, Shakespeare’s grave in Stratford is marked by
some awkward monuments: a stupid bust which probably portrayed someone else
with some poor dilettantish lines and an epitaph which more resembles a rebus
with double messages than anything clear and relevant. Ben Jonson is suspected
of being the author of it, as he also completely dominates the preface to the
first edition of the complete works of Shakespeare, which appear in 1623 seven
years after his death. Before that, Ben Jonson himself has published his
complete works, wherefore it is understandable that he might have thought that
the Shakespeare dramas also should have been published. The extolling poems of
the preface know no bounds in their flattery of the poet, who thereby for the
first time is given a personality cult. There is no doubt that William
Shakespeare meant a lot to the theatre life of London as actor and businessman
in the theatre world, while the works raise many questions. The volume swarms
with editorial mistakes although the editors had seven years to prepare it, the
pagination is faulty, in some plays the characters are confused with each
other, many text details remain inexplicable as they probably have been misinterpreted,
and the editorial work is generally marked by some want of order, which in the
second edition some efforts have been made to remedy by introducing seven new
‘Shakespeare’ plays, of which only "Pericles" was kept for further
editions. The problem remains, that several different editions of the plays
existed to be considered, among which for instance the different versions of
"Hamlet" and "Othello" contradict and compliment each
other, since none of them is complete in itself. In brief, ‘Shakespeare’ is a
perfect mess from the beginning.
His
first biography is by John Aubrey after about 70 years, which mostly consists
of loose rumours. John Aubrey’s gossip tales are notorious for their utter
unreliability, in which for instance it is related how Ben Jonson murdered
Christopher Marlowe, while in fact the fellow that Jonson killed was a totally
different actor. Francis Bacon is here characterized for the first time as a
queer with pedophilic or at least homosexual tendencies, and no one has ever been
able to take John Aubrey’s fragmental gossip tales more than 10% seriously.
The
great giants of literature of the latter half of the 18th century
who showed Shakespeare some interest, first of all Doctor Johnson, were
nonplussed by the fact that there was no first hand clear and ready evidence
confirming Shakespeare’s authorship. Finally they established Robert Greene’s
versed assaults on his colleagues, where a certain ‘Shake-Scene’ is abused, as
the first clear ‘evidence’ of Shakespeare’s authorship. There is actually no
evidence at all that these lines are about William Shakespeare at all, but it’s
just a straw in the stream as a theoretic possibility that Doctor Johnson has
found to cling to in the total absence of anything else.
During
the 18th century Shakespeare and his plays remain practically
unknown outside England. Voltaire knows about them but despises them for their
coarseness. Not until the German romantics of the Sturm und Drang epoch
headed by Goethe, Europe discovers him, and it’s not until the great romantic
era of the 1820s that Shakespeare is established internationally as a universal
dramatist. By then the first doubts concerning his authorship have already
appeared.
The
Reverend James Wilmot, deceased in 1808, ransacked all Warwickshire searching
for any trace of Shakespeare’s literary activity, like anecdotes, letters,
documents and other mementos, without finding anything at all, and he was the
first to arrive at the conclusion that Shakespeare must really must have been
the protective name for Francis Bacon, whose education, experience and
knowledgeableness better corresponded with the authorship than the uneducated
fortune hunter from Stratford, who never obtained any higher education and
never, apparently, went abroad, while the authorship so clearly indicates
experience collected from at least the Cambridge university, Italy and France.
The
key play in this context in the Shakespeare production is the early
"Love’s Labour’s Lost", which betrays intimate knowledge of what went
on at the court of Navarre at the time of the youth of Henry IV before he
became king of France – all the characters of the play existed in real life and
only in Navarre. Except Francis Bacon, who was there at an early stage, also
the son-in-law of his cousin the earl of Oxford, William Stanley, might have
remained there for some time during his grand tour of Europe in the beginning
of the 1580s; one of the more odd characters of the play, Holofernes, is in
fact a caricature of William Stanley’s tutor Richard Lloyd, who accompanied his
noble pupil on his journeys as an undesirable chaperon and who actually wrote
the morality which is parodied in the play; and in the company of Stanley is
also mentioned a certain ‘Christoffer Marron’, who really could have been
Christopher Marlon, which is one of the forms in which his name is written. He
was at this time at Cambridge from which he was frequently absent during longer
periods, since he was engaged as an agent in the intelligence of Sir Francis
Walsingham.
In
France he most probably also later appeared as the agent ‘Le Doux’ around
Bordeaux together with Anthony Bacon, Francis Bacon’s elder brother, who after
Sir Francis Walsingham’s death in 1590 partly took over the charge of
Walsingham’s intelligence. Walsingham’s younger cousin Thomas Walsingham was
Marlowe’s sponsor and protector. Anthony Bacon almost got into trouble in
France by the complications of homosexual relationships but was saved from
prosecution by Henry IV of Navarre. As ‘Le Doux’, Marlowe also appears later in
England during the 1590s with a list of his library, which corresponds
perfectly with the sources of most of the Shakespeare works.
The
father of Ferdinando and William Stanley is the fourth Earl of Derby, one of
the most wealthy and powerful men of England and a Catholic but implicitly
loyal to the Queen. The eldest son Ferdinando is the producer of Marlowe’s
plays. After the death of the father he becomes the fifth Earl of Derby but
dies already in 1594, probably by poisoning, probably by the intrigues of
embittered Catholics, since Ferdinando refused to accept to be their candidate
for the throne. He (and his brother William) were as close as cousins to the
Queen as James VI of Scotland, later James I of the United Kingdom. The
brothers also had a cousin, another William Stanley, who had taken his
Catholicism seriously and become a traitor living in exile in Spain. After his
brother Ferdinando’s violent death, in view of his cousin’s treachery and as
cousin of the Queen, William Stanley, the sixth Earl of Derby, had every reason
to keep a very low profile. After his brother’s death he was probably the one
who continued to keep up the foremost theatre company of England, the Lord
Chamberlain’s Men, which was reorganized and
reformed after the strange demission of Marlowe.
How
this probably was arranged for his escape from the English inquisition, which
was pursuing him for his free-thinking (‘atheism’, the worst and most criminal
abomination you could apply yourself to in England at that time, the most
subversive of all activities,) has earlier been treated in various articles.
The
Shakespeare authorship is obviously a direct continuation of Marlowe’s. In a
series of seven dramatic theatre experiments, of which by the first one, Tamburlaine,
he creates and establishes the English verse drama, he
gradually develops the English drama into the form which subsequently and
invariably becomes the Shakespeare standard. It’s not likely that Shakespeare
could master this form directly without preparatory work in such an
accomplished professionalism which is already displayed in the first
Shakespeare dramas, especially not in view of his non-existent education and
lack of experience of Cambridge, France or Italy.
It
is more likely that Marlowe went underground as a consequence of the political
and religious harassment he was subjected to by authorities and Puritans; the
powerful Puritans hated the theatre and persecuted it relentlessly from the
beginning unto the bitter end, and Marlowe had even been commissioned to make a
theological career – that’s why he was sent to Cambridge on scholarship,
although he was only a shoemaker’s son. He was involved in the inner conflicts
of the Anglican Church, in the free-thinking circles that were launched by
Giordano Bruno’s visit in England in the 1580s to his friend Philip Sidney,
(another key figure to English poetry, who creates the Shakespearean Sonnet, with
friends around him like Walter Raleigh, Francis Bacon, Thomas Harriott the
astronomer, Henry Wriothesly and others,) and he was deep in British
intelligence, which from the start he had rendered vital service, according to
their own written testimony. He consequently had every reason to get off all
public life to avoid further trouble and to be able to continue working in
peace with his poetry and secret service abroad to the nation, to Burghley and
the Bacons. He was also involved in the Huguenot emigrant circles of refugees
from France in Canterbury, his home town, in which circles also William Parr,
the Queen’ s special favourite, younger brother of her last stepmother
Catherine Parr, was deeply engaged.
After
Anthony Bacon’s retreat from France and decease after the Essex crisis at the
end of the Queen’s reign, Francis Bacon is in all probability the one who takes
over his brother’s contacts and international network, which also includes the
continued co-operation with Christopher Marlowe (‘Le Doux’, but there are also
other code names,) while Francis Bacon at the same time has to tend his
reckless cousin the Earl of Oxford’s businesses, another key figure to the
English dramatic art and obviously portrayed in several of the Shakespeare
plays, whose son-in-law was William Stanley, whose affairs also were tended by
Francis Bacon, who in addition thereto also was deeply engaged in the theatre.
We see here clearly a close inter-relationship and co-operation network
concerning the theatre and other important business interests between Oxford,
his cousins Anthony and Francis Bacon, his son-in-law William Stanley (with the
elder brother Ferdinando, Marlowe’s producer,) the families Walsingham and
Sidney (related to the Oxford and Bacon clans by marriage,) and Christopher
Marlowe, the most extreme free-thinker of them all by his revolutionary atheism
and dynamic dramatic art with the creation of the English verse drama as his
foremost contribution.
Many
details in this web of coincidences we must let be and pass over here, but the
Sonnets also play an important part in the mystery. Their predominantly
homosensual contents, and the mass of concrete details which these 154 sonnets
published in Shakespeare’s name present, have nothing at all in common with the
life of William Shakespeare, a family man from the country with three children
and wife, which he returned to after having fulfilled his career in London and
so always remained faithful to, whom he had married only 18 years old as she
then already was pregnant. The Sonnets are more fitting to the personality of
Oxford but most of all to Marlowe. They are marked by a mysterious dedication
to a certain ‘Mr. W.H.’ who has never been identified. It could neither have
been Henry Wriothesly nor William Herbert, since they were nobles and could not
be given the title of ‘Mr’. (William Herbert was the son of Mary Sidney, sister
to Sir Philip Sidney, who played such an important but unidentified part in the
appearance of the Shakespeare poetry. The first edition of the Shakespeare
works were dedicated to William Herbert and his brother, unknown by whom.)
Another
enigmatical figure in the shadows of this context is a never identified
confidence or publishing man called William Hall, a key figure in the
distribution of plays, whose name occurs in the company of Oxford and Anthony
Munday, Oxford’s secretary, in whose hand we have the apocryphal ‘Shakespeare’
play "Sir Thomas More", which shows evidence of the Shakespeare
dramatic art – the play was suppressed as politically risky. In vain, efforts
have been made to identify this evasive shadow, whom you never can get rid of
in the Shakespeare research muddle, since he palpably pops up in the background
of every kind of activity in those days, for instance Raleigh’s interests in
the New World; but William Hall, which is as common a name as John Webster,
might also have been another alias and protective name for Christopher Marlowe
(who after May 30th 1593 and his official disappearance never more
could use his name in public as a living man); and that the publisher Thomas
Thorpe, who also published Marlowe’s unfinished epic poem "Hero and
Leander", quite simply would have dedicated the
Sonnets to their own author, ‘mr. W.H.’, which theory seems the most likely.
Nothing in the Sonnets fits into William Shakespeare. Everything would fit
perfectly into Christopher Marlowe.
Another
important fact to constantly bear in mind is, that the theatre industry in
Queen Elizabeth’s time was an unsurveyable community – the plays and the theatres
were owned in common by the actors; and only as exceptions singular personal
interests rise in the business, like William Shakespeare, who was an
accomplished capitalist, whom the eight year younger Ben Jonson had his career
to thank for. Not until Ben Jonson’s preface to the first Shakespeare edition
seven years after his older colleague’s demise, a personality cult is
introduced into the scenery. Neither Oxford, the Stanley brothers, the Bacon
brothers, any Walsingham or any Sidney, Marlowe nor even William Shakspere
himself had ever showed any inclination for anything such. It’s the falseness
of that personality cult which the Shakespeare issue suffers from still today
as a most disturbing and confusing encumberment, almost like a falsification of
history aimed at darkening it.
So
the Shakespeare authorship should be seen as a kind of collective work, even if
Marlowe probably wrote most of it himself. Almost all the Shakespeare plays are
more or less corrupt through eager treatment by actors and copyists, and the
play which is regarded as best preserved and closest to the original is
"Richard II". Also Marlowe’s plays are available in truncated and
different versions, especially "Doctor Faustus" (his most famous, the
prototype for Goethe’s version,) and "The Massacre at Paris". The
most mishandled by careless treatment of the plays could be "King
Lear", which was probably the greatest tragedy of them all.
Nevertheless,
all the Shakespeare plays remain unsurpassed in composition and in their
dramatic and language quality. No Goethe, Schiller, Victor Hugo, Strindberg or
Ibsen arrived even close to their quality in beauty and richness of human
versatility.
There
are however a number of other probably ‘pseudo’-Shakespeare plays, that should
be included in the same top category, for instance "Arden of
Feversham", "The Spanish Tragedy", "A Yorkshire
Tragedy", "Edward III", "Sir Thomas More", "The
White Devil", "The Duchess of Malfi" and "Appius and
Virginia", just to mention a few that definitely must have had the same
collective origin from the same workshop as Shakespeare.
Someone
interpreted the Marlowe/Shakespeare duplicity as a case of plagiarism:
I
don't think this was a case of plagiarism but rather of necessity. I don't
think the Marlowe/Shakespeare duplicity would ever have been established
without an agreement between them. Mind you, Marlowe's poem "Hero and
Leander" and the Shakespeare poem "Venus and Adonis" are twins,
written about the same time as if "both" authors knew the other poem
by heart, Marlowe's poem having been registered in spring 1593, the
"first" Shakespeare poem appearing only some weeks after Marlowe's
exit. An agreement between them is to be suspected, since the "show had to
go on" even if the main playwright had to be done without at least as a
name. As I said, Shakspere never boosted his prestige himself, it was not done
until after his death and only by Ben Jonson, who owed the success of his
career to him. Thus the Shakespeare trademark could be regarded as a mere
necessary formality – there had to be some visible name for the scenes, and
Will Shakespeare was a chap reliable enough as a business man and actor to be
counted on to keep up the necessary appearances. He was mindful enough to
quietly retire from the stage after the appearance of the 'Sonnets'."
I
guess that what we all hope for and wait for is any kind of final proof that
either Shakspere actually wrote Shakespeare or that anyone else did,
particularly of any life activity from Marlowe after his assumed faked or actual
death. Until then there will persistently remain both reasonable doubts
concerning his eventual death or life after 1593 and reasonable doubts
concerning the supposed authorship of W. Shakspere.
Some Oxfordian
Comments
The most aggressive "anti-stratfordians" are
usually oxfordians, why the question must be asked how the earl of Oxford has
come to gain such an awesome status among Shakespeare researchers.
It’s
not possible to explain him away. Hardly anything of his writings has been
preserved, while his influence and significance for the Shakespeare works is
irrefutable. At least "Measure for Measure" and "Hamlet"
present undeniable and definite Oxford portraits, which dramas very well might
have reached their final versions at the time of the old noble theatre
pioneer’s death in 1604. The Hamlet play existed already long before at least
in the 1580s, there is even a German version of a "Ur-Hamlet" which
might have been used by German and English actors at the Danish court of
Elsinore to celebrate the inauguration of the Kronborg castle in June 1585,
where the future son-in-law of Oxford’s, William Stanley, later the sixth earl
of Derby, and also Christopher Marlowe might have been present, (at that time
he was in fact absent from his college at Cambridge;) and for some abstruse
reason the Shakespeare death mask turned up in Germany and not in England.
There is no reason for doubting the authenticity of that death mask. The German
ambulant theatre activities and companies where very lively right up to the
outbreak of the 30 years’ war in 1618, and English actors and theatre companies
were frequently there as participants. The subject is as unsurveyable as
unfathomable in its circumstantiality.
Oxford
was also intimately involved in the Wilton activities, the literary circles of
Mary Sidney after her brother Philip Sidney’s untimely death far too early
after having invented and introduced the Shakespeare sonnet, where also Francis
Bacon occurred and even Christopher Marlowe might have been present as a page
while Giordano Bruno was there. The only person in the Shakespeare gallery that
Oxford definitely had no connection with at all was William Shakspere.
Consequently and logically enough, the oxfordians are the most inveterate and
definite "anti-stratfordians".
It’s
also probable that Oxford was the one who produced Marlowe’s first play, the
lost play of "Skanderbeg" about an Albanian freedom-fighter’s revolt
against the Turks. There is small doubt that "A Midsummer-Night’s
Dream" was written for the occasion of Oxford’s daughter’s marriage to
William Stanley in 1595, where Theseus is presumed to be a portrait of the
horse-man Stanley.
Who
was Oxford then, who appears everywhere in the background of Shakespeare and
who probably was the principle introducer if not creator of the English theatre
and dramatic art, who nevertheless has left no single intact play behind him,
while quite a number can be traced to some original idea or original version
from his hand? He was a well-travelled man of the world and adventurer with an
awful temper, great feelings and dynamic energy but apparently without social
talent. He was one of Queen Elizabeth’s main favourites, but he consistently
made a fool of himself at court and for that reason retired completely into
seclusion, painfully aware of his shortcomings, in order to for the last ten
years of his life lead a life of isolation and misery. He was a hopeless
squanderer, he was born one of the wealthiest men in England and died as
perhaps the poorest nobleman of the nation, although his family belonged to the
noblest and oldest English nobility. Bacon did what he could to help his
cousin, and the Queen never ceased to subsidize him, but when she was gone
nothing could help him any more.
We
shall never be able to define the width of his importance to the development of
the "Shakespeare" phenomenon, and the only thing we can know for
certain about it is that it is impossible to deny.
Kipling read anew
The
collected poems of Rudyard Kipling comprise about 500 poems on 850 pages. Many
of them are consequently rather long, but all are professional. An author’s
poems are almost his most personal output, and if you are interested in the
soul of a poet you should most of all study his poems.
Few
poets have been as wigged as Kipling (1865-1936). You almost get the impression
that the whole Anglo-Saxon world has been ashamed of him. He has been accused
of imperialism, chauvinism, populism, racism, fascism and nazism in that order,
and few have dared to defend him. If you study his poems carefully it clearly
appears that all the accusations and prejudices against him fall flat – none of
them holds water.
The
negative evaluation is really founded on the failure to understand that Kipling
first of all was a journalist. A journalist’s task is to render what he sees
and hears and experiences as truthfully as possible. Kipling has never failed
on that line. As an observer and neutral documentary he is 100% consistent. It
was not his fault that the world derailed in 1914, whereafter since 1918 all
the values that existed before 1914 turned to the contrary. Kipling is a child
of the heroic optimism of the 19th century and assumes full
responsibility for actively participating in a creative and constructive world
order, which lasted all the way up to 1914. During the war he lost his only son
and never even learned where or how – the body was never found. He was only
reported "wounded, probably killed". As a friend described the
situation:
“Kipling’s
son was swept up in the ''romance'' of the war. He wanted to 'follow the beat
of the drum'. He pestered his father to intercede on his behalf, so he could
join the army. John Kipling had a very bad eye sight, he needed very thick
glasses. The father cashed in a few favours to have his son to join the army.
And so young Kipling joined one of the elite regiments of the British army. He
was killed shortly after joining up. His body was never found. The father searched
for years, checking out the many hospitals, in the hope he would find his son,
never finding him, but seing only the back side of war, the results and the
cost of war.”
Consequently Kipling didn’t write much more after the first world war.
Consequently he was judged for what he had written before the war by the
completely different assessment of the audience of between the wars. This is
unfair to Kipling.
Had
he lived for ten more years he most probably had shown the same honestly
democratic fervour as Churchill in the second great world conflict. He was of
the same generation as Knut Hamsun and Sven Hedin, who also let themselves be
carried off by the optimistic universally imperialistic delirium, which went
down the ditch in 1914. Hamsun and Hedin remained delirious and continued
rushing on in their blind heroic enthusiasm. Kipling lost his only son and fell
silent.
Whatever
you might think about his unreserved glorification of the British Empire and
the cause of its servants and soldiers, you can’t avoid the fact that he is
unsurpassed as a poet of his kind. His Jungle Books are inimitable and can’t be
transcended in their magic rendering of the mystery of Indian nature – they are
simply uniquely ingenious as stories of nature. You more often than not stumble
into suchlike highlights in his production. To the best things he has written
belong also his long poems from the last glorious days of the sailing ships and
the hardships of their courageous sailors.
You
can hardly understand Kipling if you haven’t been to India yourself, this
unsurveyable mixture of exotic countries and peoples, the paradise of
exaggerations, the mysterious home of immoderation, where everything is
possible and where life consists of constantly extreme contrasts and surprises.
Kipling was born in Bombay, and India formed him and educated him to what he
became: a uniquely romantic realist with an intermediary talent to collect and render
tangible the overwhelming impressions of the chaotically colourful Indian world
without for a moment losing his grip on reality. He is a poet and extreme as
such but at the same time perhaps the most realistic of all great poets.
As
a child he was severely abused by his family and nearly lost his sight in the
process. His sight remained impeded all his life, which might have contributed
to the sharpening of his other intellectual senses and talents to a major
extent. He who believes everything he sees so deceives himself that he ends up
understanding nothing of the truth, while Kipling never misses anything that is
hidden behind the appearances.
Great Expectations
(on receiving the news
in Kumaon, Uttaranchal, of the results of the presidential elections…)
The moment of triumph is
here
bringing great
expectations.
It's still not too late to
wish all wars to end
and to some better order
to this troubled world
so grossly mishandled by
crooks and impostors
that ever turned history
to a most ruthless
and thoughtless
rumbustious bulldozer.
All countries are ruined
at least to some part
by the reckless
irresponsibility of warring lords
acting first, shooting
blindly and afterwards
bleak-minded by their
mistakes.
Anything would be better
than what we've been through,
so it's not wrong to have
expectations
since any change must
bring improvement.
Let's hope also for some
enlightenment
and some good sense for a
change;
so I welcome you heartily
with deepest thanks,
Mr President Barack Obama,
for finally bringing some
hope
to the desperate state of
the rotten American state,
which the whole world with
me but can welcome
with enthusiastic applause
and encouragement
of this new hope of some
betterment
and possibility of a new
deal for America.
Per il centenario del mio
padre Aurelio Lanciai.
Quest’anno
al 28 febbraio, lui ha compiuto 100 anni. Per questo, sarà interessante
ricordarsi di lui e la sua personalitá, specialmente finché é ancora più vivo
che mai.
Per
il solo bambino in una famiglia dove i genitori hanno sempre fatto liti di
soldi, la vita non era facile, specialmente finché il capo della famiglia era
un immigrante italiano ad Abo (Turku) in Finlandia, dove ha trovato difficoltà
di mantenersi con il naso sopra l’aqua. I tempi della prima guerra mondiale era
specialmente difficile in Finlandia, che ha sofferto una guerra civile, una
vittima di quale era Ferruccio Lanciai, il mio nonno, che ha avuto il suo
negozio, "Wenezianska Magazinet" sul
Humlegårdsgatan 8 in Abo, rovinato dagli delinquenti delle brigate rosse; ma la
rovina definitiva era un fuoco nel magazzino, senza essere assicurato.
Il
mio padre allora ha cresciuto e maturato in circostanze abbastanza particolari
e non troppo facili, la sfida di quali nonestante ha incontrato con coraggio e
risolutezza. La sua madre Selma era un genio di lingue, nella sua casa si
parlava sempre non solo svedese e finlandese ma anche russo e tedesco, che ha
compensato l’ostacolo di lingue per Ferruccio, che ha imparato svedese soltanto
passabilmente e niente finlandese. Insieme hanno parlato italiano, che Selma ha
imparato soltanto ascoltandola. Il mio padre ha ereditato la sua facilità per
le lingue ed era ambizioso per impararsi bene non solo finlandese dall’inizio
ma poi anche inglese, tedesco e spagnolo. Il patriotismo italiano di Ferruccio,
purtroppo, ha creato antipatia nel mio padre contro la cultura italiana in quel
periodo di Mussolini ed il fascismo, che a lui ha fatto schifo.
Aparte
del talente per le lingue, c’era anche la musica e lo sport. Lui ha suonato il
pianoforte, la chitarra ed il contrabasso ed ha vinto i campionati per lo
tennis come il maestro degli giovani. In addizione a tutto questo, ha anche
avuto una bella voce per cantare, che l’ha fatto un grande entusiastico per i
cori per tutta la vita. Non ha mai lasciato un coro dopo aver una volta
partecipato, neanche il Coro Finlandia, che era soltanto un coro per un solo
viaggio per la fiera mondiale a New York in 1939, per quale occasione hanno
scelto i cantori i più bravi in tutta Finlandia – c’erano sempre celebrazioni
ogni 10 anni per mantenere la memoria del viaggio di trionfo. Neanche i cori di
Goteborg non ha mai lasciato neanche dopo il suo trasferimento a Stoccolma.
L’interessa
italiana ha cominciato abbastanza tardi, e non ha visitato Italia per la prima
volta finché come ventenne insieme con un collega sulla motocicletta. Per la
sua seconda visita in Italia in 1959, lui ha ancora soltanto potuto parlare
spagnolo, ma poi ha cominciato di studiare italiano sul serio, dopo quale la
sua interessa italiana sempre si ha sviluppato. Il suo sogno era di comprare
una casa sul Lago di Garda, ma purtroppo lo sviluppo della sua famiglia ha
fatto questo progetto impossibile. Quando ha lasciato la sua vita quasi all’età
di 84, il suo ultimo desiderio era per noi a usare i suoi soldi per andare in
Italia.
Quando
non era più, abbiamo chiesto l’una l’altro: cosa ci ricordavamo di più di lui?
Quali memorie sarebbero i migliori? Per alcuni sono stati gli occhi blu, ma per
me era il suo senso d’umorismo. Era naturalmente molto allegramente
estrovertito ed ha sempre molto apprezzato gli scherzi. I miei momenti più
buoni insieme con lui era quando mi ha presentato musica che lui ha piaciuto,
come la lirica italiana o Franz Liszt, ma sopratutto quando sono stato riuscito
di farlo ridere veramente cordialmente. Quando era felice, non è stato un uomo
più felice di lui.
Forse
questi sforzi e schizzi di ricordi di lui puó aiutarci di mantenerlo ancora per
alcuni decenni in memoria…
An Effort at a Brief
Summary of the Tibetan Problem
To
incorporate Tibet into China was one of Mao Zedong’s first and major ambitions
as he took over absolute power in China 1949, and already the following year he
embarked on realizing his plans occupying the peaceful and pacifist Tibet by
force and armies. That however was not the end of his ambitions, but he also
decided to dispose of the problem of the Tibetan mentality, which was predominantly
religious, spiritual and philosophical, while Mao Zedong and his party were
bent on enforcing atheism and materialism throughout China. In Tibet Buddhism
was the state religion, since it was no secular state but a theocracy, why Mao
Zedong felt himself obliged to introduce atheism and the only allowable
materialistic outlook on life in Tibet by force. In accordance thereto, the
struggle against the monastic culture was introduced. Already in 1956 this led
to problems in eastern Tibet, wherefore harder measures were considered
necessary: the monasteries started to be bombed.
In
1959 it was all too clear to the Tibetans, that the Chinese propaganda about
"liberating" Tibet only was the official excuse to enforce their
occupation of Tibet to steal it from the Tibetans. Already in the 50s Mao
Zedong nourished the ambition to people Tibet with 50 million Chinese in order
to engulf the Tibetan population and make it disappear. Tibet was quite simply
to be completely sinofied, for the disposal of all possible Tibetan problems.
The same policy was successfully carried through in Manchuria (where the
Manchurian original population already had been reduced to one percent) while
East Turkestan offered a somewhat more difficult challenge, since the
population there was Turkish and Muslim and had nothing at all in common with
the Chinese world. Tibet at least had always been in touch with China, although
that relationship always had been traumatic.
When
the Chinese fired off two grenades in Lhasa to scare off a gathering of the
people in March 1959, Dalai Lama had enough and went into exile to form an
exile government in India. His exile there celebrates 50 years this year and is
without parallel in history for a head of state. He has constantly advocated a
peaceful settlement with China and even agreed to Tibet being a part of China,
if at least Tibet was given autonomy, which China as consistently has turned
down, while their angry propaganda during all these years has denounced Dalai
Lama as something like the worst scoundrel ever in Asia – their insults and
libel of the Dalai Lama have during all these 50 years interminably been
senseless and exaggerated in one-sided chronical aggression.
Dalai
Lama’s co-regent in Tibet and their spiritual leader the Panchen Lama, who
remained in Tibet and almost always was co-operative and obedient to the
Chinese, called in 1964 the attention to the gross evils which the enforced
Chinese occupation had caused Tibet, accusing China of causing mass starvation
among other things. China has never tolerated criticism and least of all if it
was justified, why the Panchen Lama was abducted and kept in isolation in
Beijing for a few decades without being allowed any contact with the outer
world. He was subjected to brainwash procedures and forced marriage – a
Buddhist monk can only live in celibate, or he is no Buddhist monk. These
treatments would be enforced upon an overwhelming number of other monks and
nuns as well.
In
1966 Mao introduced his great Cultural Revolution, the program of which was
that all Chinese culture of the past should be eradicated to make way for the
new, which was no culture at all. In accordance with this policy, Red Guards
were spread all over China to destroy whatever they could of the past, and most
of all to East Turkestan and Tibet to annihilate all mosques, monasteries and
temples. The holocaust was as good as total. In Tibet 6246 monasteries and
temples out of 6259 were destroyed, while 60% of all hand-written books were
burnt. Eventual artifice and works of art in monasteries and temples were sent
down to China to get the party some profits by sales on the international
markets of antiquities. All statues that were sculptured by clay were smashed
and crushed. The holiest temple of Tibet, the Jokhang Cathedral in Lhasa from
the 8th century, was ruined internally and transformed into stables
and sties. All this went on for ten years.
A
fraction of the Tibetan cultural heritage was rescued to Dharamsala. About
150,000 Tibetans managed to escape alive from Tibet, while 1,2 million or a
fifth of the population were murdered in one way or another, by torture, by the
Chinese Gulag or simply by execution. Still today, any Chinese has any right to
kill off a Tibetan for nothing and be certain to get away with it, while no
Tibetan has any right at all against the Chinese society, unless he learns
Chinese, rejects his Tibetan identity and becomes loyal to the ruling party.
Only then he might be treated humanly. Many prefer to leave the country,
and the stream of refugees from Tibet into India across mountain passes higher
than 6000 meters is between 2000 and 3000 per year. So Tibet has constantly
been bleeding to death since 1950, and there is nothing to stop that continual
fatal loss.
In
the 1990s the long-term project of drowning the Tibetan population in Chinese
enforced immigration was introduced for sure. Already the greater towns of
Lhasa, Shigatse and Gyangtse are completely dominated by Chinese, while the
Tibetans more and more are confined into ghettos that constantly are reduced by
demolitions and Chinese building projects.
Panchen
Lama passed away in 1989, and after about five years the Tibetans found his
reincarnation, a small boy from a poor family in humble circumstances, as is
usually the case with important reincarnations in Tibet. As soon as the Chinese
learned about this, the boy was abducted and carried away with his family to an
unknown destination, and since then nothing more has been heard of anyone of
them. Next, the Chinese launched their own "real" Panchen Lama, an
equally small boy, who is completely in their power brainwashed and programmed
to do and say exactly as they want him to. He appears publicly and is their
puppet, causing constant unease with the Tibetans for his obvious falseness. The
real Panchen Lama has beaten all historical records as the youngest political
prisoner in the world, if he is still alive – he has now been a prisoner for 14
years. On April 24th, he is 20 years old.
This
article was planned as a short summary of the Tibetan problem. Unfortunately it
has proved impossible to make it short, since the litany must be endless. The
sum however is, that it’s not Tibet or the Tibetans that constitute the problem
but the Chinese autocracy, which like all dictatorships suffers from the
problem that it impossibly can recognize itself as a problem.
Since
the 1960s through the consequences of the abortive Vietnam war the whole world
has kowtowed and flattered the Chinese dictatorship led by Richard Nixon, who
together with Henry Kissinger during the 70s saw to it that China replaced
Taiwan as a permanent member of the Security Council in the United Nations,
although the Chinese government of Taiwan since 1949 still really is the only
lawful one of China. They even agreed to stop the support of CIA to the few
remaining freedom fighters of Tibet still resisting the Chinese occupation,
whereupon these last active fighters for the freedom of Tibet were callously
sacrificed to the Chinese oppression, which today is harder and more unhuman
than ever, while the world just keeps looking on doing nothing and continuing
to buy cheap Chinese products swamping the market, especially children’s toys
no matter how poisonous they are.
In
brief, this trauma can not be contained since there is no end of it to be seen.
Gothenburg, Sweden, March
31st 2009.