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thescian
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Who was Shakespeare
Mark Twain sez,
It is surmised by the biographers that the young Shakespeare got his vast knowledge of the law and his familiar and accurate acquaintance with the manners and customs and shop-talk of lawyers through being for a time the CLERK OF A STRATFORD COURT: just as a bright lad like me, reared in a village on the banks of the Mississippi, might become perfect in knowledge of the Behring Strait whale-fishery and the shop-talk of the veteran exercisers of that adventure- bristling trade through catching catfish with a "trot-line" Sundays. But the surmise is damaged by the fact that there is no evidence- and not even tradition- that the young Shakespeare was ever clerk of a law court.
Twain is among the least accurate authorities on Shakespeare, and is given no respect on that subject by literature historians. Most of what we know today has been learned since Twain's death. Yes there was much rumor and speculation about his life that was rife when Twain wrote that, but little of it is given any credence today.
least accurate and very witty.