Steven Sabel — The Mentors to Genius

Shakespeare is widely viewed as a “natural” genius, sometimes compared to Mozart or Einstein. This lecture explores how such geniuses are typically recognized at an early age by mentors who foster their education and development. The mentors of the author “Shakespeare” are easily found if we open our minds to the idea that he was not a glover’s son from Stratford.

Presented at the 2020 Shakespeare Authorship Symposium on October 3, 2020.

Steven Sabel, Symposium Master of Ceremonies, is the former Producing Artistic Director of the Archway Theatre Company in Burbank, and founder and Producing Artistic Director of the Redlands Shakespeare Festival, both in California. He is an actor and director whose many diverse theatrical productions include 60 stagings of 23 Shakespearean works. He now lives in Oregon, serving
as Director of Public Relations for the City of Grants Pass, and in the same role for the SOF. He hosts the SOF “Don’t Quill the Messenger” podcast series.

[geoffreystevens]

I've been watching the Oxfordians on YouTube since Lockdowns began, thank you, Steven S for spelling out the history of 'Shakespeare'

[wayneferris]

Very
well done. Actually, outstanding. Thank You.

[guruuDev]

Terrific presentation! Picasso is another example of someone tutored at a young age by an expert in the family -- launching from there into further personalized training and tutoring in that area of specialty -- having achieved recognition for their precocious advancement in that area.

Seems to me it starts with a natural interest that the young person can pursue on their own terms with someone there to observe and learn from who is a practitioner in the field. The young person can observe them practicing their craft and ask questions and receive answers. This is quite a different scenario than the conventional school model which most are subjected to in more modern times.

I'm a big fan of the Sudbury Valley School model which would allow for the same learning approach and trajectory as happened for the three subjects of the lecture.

[ronroffel]

Thanks for another great example of the scholarship which Oxfordians are doing.

Your point about genius needing mentors is spot-on. I believe strongly that somewhere in some remote Amazonian or perhaps African location is a genius who, with the proper education and mentoring, could conceivably cure cancer. But because they do not have the opportunity to get educated and be guided they have no chance at all of doing so.

Shakspere from Stratford was in that same category of person: he never had the schooling or life experience to write the plays attributed to him. Edward de Vere, on the other hand, had both in abundance. His teachers and mentors included his uncle Arthur Golding, Sir Thomas Smith, and Laurence Knowell, who owned the only extant copy of Beowulf which was a source for Hamlet's last speech. I believe de Vere had an eidetic memory which explains why there is so much knowledge in the plays and poems. Nothing much more need be said.

Genius needs a garden to grow in, otherwise it withers and dies.

[budgethornet]

Very well done! But it should noted that de Veres university masters were Honorary.

[jeffreyadams]

I’m edging to oxfordianism....but I need a reason why this “genius” didn’t simply use his own name. Next, I haven’t seen (in Waugh’s videos) anything he’s written with his own name.