A comparative anthology of William Byrd's multi-bylined verse, with scholarly introductions to their biographies, borrowings, and structural formulas. Modernizing translations of some of the greatest and wittiest poetry of the Renaissance. A very different history of early British poetry and music is reconstructed, through the alternative biography of the single ghostwriter behind them. It begins with two forgeries that are written in an antique Middle English style: "Alexander Barclay's" claimed translation of Pope Pius II's Eclogues (1514?) and "John Skelton's" Eclogues (1521?). Matthew Lownes assigned the "Edmund Spenser"-byline for the first time in 1611 to the previously anonymous Shepherds' Calendar (1579) to profit from the popularity of the appended to it Fairy Queen. Byrd's self-attributed Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs (1588) includes several lyrics that have since been re-assigned erroneously to other bylines in this collection, such as "Sir Edward Dyer's" "My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is". The "University Wit" label is reinterpreted as being applied to those who completed paper-degrees with help from ghostwriters, as exemplified in "Robert Greene's" confession that "his" Pandosto and Menaphon were "so many parricides", as if these obscene topics were forced upon him without his participation in the authorial process. Alexander Dyce appears to have assigned the anonymous Licia (1593) to "Giles Fletcher" in a brief note in 1843, using only the evidence of a vague mention of an associated monarch in a text from another member of the "Fletcher" family. One of the few blatantly fictitiously-bylined Renaissance texts that have not been re-assigned to a famous "Author" is "Henry Willobie's" Avisa (1594) that invents a non-existent Oxford-affiliated editor called "Hadrian Dorrell", who confesses to have stolen this book, without "Willobie's" permission. "John Dowland's" First Book of Songs or Airs (1597) is explained as a tool that helped Dowland obtain an absurdly high 500 daler salary from King Christian IV of Denmark in 1600, and his subsequent equally absurd willingness to settle for a £21 salary in 1612 to become King James I's Lutenist. And the seemingly innocuous publication of "Michael Cavendish's" 14 Airs in Tablature to the Lute (1598) is reinterpreted as part of a propaganda campaign supporting Lady Arabella Stuart's succession to the British throne. "William Shakespeare's" The Passionate Pilgrim (1599) has been dismissed by scholars as only containing a few firmly "Shakespearean" poems, in part because nearly all of its 20 poems had appeared under other bylines. The identity of Madrigals' (1599) "John Bennet" is linked with Sir John Bennet, whose bail was sponsored with a £1,200 donation from Byrd. "Thomas Weelkes'" Madrigals (1600) is reframed as part of a fraud that managed to advance Weelkes from a menial laborer £2 salary at Winchester to a £15 Organist salary at Chichester. "Richard Carlton's" Madrigals' (1601) torn-out prefacing pages puff two schemers involved in the conspiracy of Biron. Sir Thomas More's Hand D is not "Shakespeare's only surviving literary manuscript". "Thomas Ford's" Music of Sundry Kinds (1607) gives evidence of interrelated Jewish Court musicians, included Joseph Lupo (potential underlying ghostwriter of the Byrd-group). "Robert Devereux" was not a Court Poet, but rather somebody who corruptly sold over £70,000 in patronage, knighthoods and other paper-honors. A Cambridge lawsuit between William Biggons and William Byrd over an assault explains why Byrd left academia.

William Byrd (1540?-1623) is the Workshop's versifying musicologist, with an official music industry monopoly. He worked as the Chapel Royal's Organist, while ghostwriting for other musicians to elevate their careers.

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• Publication Date: February 6, 2023
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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• Print Length: 1,274 Pages
• File Size: 8,207 KB