Another feeble, automatic contradiction when considering the content of sonnet 76, and the knowledge that thomas watson experimented with new styles in his writing, the 18 line sonnet....he did not follow tradition.
None of which in any way implies that Shakespeare was thinking of Watson specifically, or that he would have put an acrostic in the sonnet even if he was.
- If the initial sequence had read, say, ALASTHOMASWATSON, that would be radically less likely to be pure chance.
- If other sonnets' initial sequences contained such as (say) OMASTERBENJONSON, or EARLEOFOXENFORD, it would be far more likely that the initial sequence of #76 was also acrostic.
- If there were any evidence that in his time, or in his own idiolect,
and was routinely elided to
-n- as it often is today, your contention that the author would use A as a stand-in for N might be tenable. But there isn't. In the canon many short words are routinely elided - e.g.
in becomes
i',
of becomes
o' - but we
never get ‘nymphs ‘n’ shepherds’ or anything like it. So your argument in this respect does not hold water.
- If the canon contained a
single manifestly acrostic poem, it would increase the probability that he had included acrostics elsewhere in his work. But (in an age when the acrostic poem was very much a la mode), it doesn't.
What you don't seem to grasp is that the mere assertion that the sequence TWATSON is a not-very-good acrostic on a fellow poet is worthless. It's not up to me or anyone else to disprove it; it up to
you to prove it, or at the very least to show some powerful reasons for believing it.
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bdmonty
8 years ago
....why you believe....
Condescension aside, those 3 words are really what we're working with, are they not?
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Culfy
8 years ago
I really don't understand your point. Syntinen and I have argued that if the writer had wanted to do an acrostic in the sonnet, it would have been trivially easy to do one that fills the whole 14 lines, not just a random selection of lines (and not even a perfect acrostic at that). What actually is your argument against this?
PC SJW AND PROUD OF IT
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syntinen
8 years ago
Well, you may be working with belief, but I'm working with probability.
Even in a 157-sonnet sequence, the probability of all 14 of the initial letters of any sonnet forming a perfect word, name or phrase by chance are fairly low. Therefore, if one does, and said sequence can reasonably be construed as in some way relevant to the subject matter, the likelihood that this is an intentional acrostic is pretty high. OK?
However, the probability of a sequence of only 13 of the initial letters of any sonnet forming a perfect word, name or phrase by chance is a multiple of that. And every time you drop the bar by a letter, the probability is multiplied again. So if you will accept a sequence of only 7 letters that can be construed as in any way relevant to the subject matter, the probability that you will get one appearing by pure chance in at least one of the sonnets is very high indeed.
And if you’re going to 'play a joker’ by not even requiring a sequence to form a word or name but hypothesising that any one letter can substitute for the letter you need it to be in order for the sequence to make a word or name, it’s a virtual certainty that you will find one; therefore, the existence of such a sequence is in itself just not meaningful at all.
So, if you want anyone to believe that the occurrence, in a sonnet about the author’s difficulty in refreshing his verse style, of a sequence of 7 letters not-quite-spelling the name of a contemporary experimental poet is anything but a not-quite-coincidence, you will have to bring some supporting evidence. And you will also have to explain away any evidence to the contrary: such as the fact that the acrostic poem in the Renaissance invariably comprised all the initial letters in a sonnet or stanza, not just some of them; so a sequence such as this wouldn’t have rated as an acrostic at all.
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alfa-16
8 years ago
118 seconds work.
----------------------
Is my verse, then so barren of new pride?
And far from variation or quick change?
Might I with the time just glance aside
To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
Oh Why write still all one, ever the same,
Mighty invention kept in noted weed,
When every word doth almost tell my name,
And Show their birth and where they did proceed?
To, know, sweet love, I always write of you,
So you and love are still my argument;
Or all my best is dressing old words new,
Now spending thus what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.
I = I AM TOM WATSON.
A
M
T
O
M
W
A
T
S
O
N
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Culfy
8 years ago
to be fair we do have the 'Cs Us And Ts' dirty joke in Measure For Measure
PC SJW AND PROUD OF IT
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