Who Wrote Shakespeare?

NEWS FLASH!

William Shakespeare the man may not be one and the same with William Shakespeare the playwright. In other words, someone else may have written those plays and sonnets, using Shakespeare as a cover, and that person is the near-universally acknowledged greatest writer of the English language.

Since I’ve long been a fan of history’s mysteries and conspiracy-oriented stuff ranging from the weirdestly fringey to the commonly-accepted commonplace, I’m a little shocked I never came across this theory before. Well, I heard about it, but never explored it in any depth greater than a minute’s worth of reading. A few days ago I read a coupla pages on the “Will the real Shakespeare please stand up” theory and am intrigued. But be forewarned: I have no idea how legitimate this position is, so if I’m posting here on something truly outta left field, forgive me.

So what’s the main argument that Shakespeare did not write the plays upon which his name graces?

Well, there’s a couple of circumstantial-evidence-type clues that adherents believe, taken all together, point to an anonymous writer of the plays.

According to Shakespearean scholars, it would be tough to argue against the view that the writer of the plays would have to have understood military terms like a soldier would and naval terms like a sailor would. He would have been familiar with courtly etiquette and court mannerisms. Legal language and the machinations of legal courts appear to have come second nature to him, almost as if he was a lawyer or a legal scholar. And as far as the historical plays go, the playwright must have been fluent in Latin and Greek. Why? ’Cause many of the source materials for these works had not been translated into English yet.

Now, what do we know of Will Shakespeare? Not as much as you’d think. We do know that he had a somewhat humble, middle-class birth, the son of a glove-maker. There is no record of him attending any school. In fact, the only real, authenticated record we have of him are a bunch of commercial transactions, some familial sacramental records, and his will. Interestingly, there are no books mentioned in Shakespeare’s will. A bed, yes, but any books, which were rare and valuable and presumably owned and utilized by the Bard, no. Also, no contemporary poets or playwrights ever wrote anything commendable about the presumed greatest writer of the English language.

Why would someone have the need to publish anonymously as Shakespeare, who, by proponents of this theory, is just a moderately successful actor of somewhat average talent? For one, being a playwright was not considered a worthy occupation, at the time, for a nobleman. Nor for a variety of social, political, and even legal reasons would a highly-placed wordsmith want to make his name public. Due to the pretty much nonexistent copyright laws at the time, it would not be too difficult to disseminate works under another author’s name and even get them performed.

If not Shakespeare, then who?

Just about everyone in Elizabethan England at the time, including the Queen herself, has been proposed as a possible candidate. The most common and plausible is Sir Francis Bacon. After him, you have Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford; the poet and playwright, Christopher Marlowe; the author Sir Walter Raleigh; the poet Sir Edward Dyer; and, actually, Queen Elizabeth.

Sir Francis Bacon has the frontrunner credentials: philosopher, scientist, statesman, legal scholar, cryptographer, student of Latin, Greek, and several European languages. However, nothing in Bacon’s acknowledged writings point to anything as epically artistic and … Shakespearean. But the fact that he did create several ciphers make certain proponents foam at the mouth searching the Bard’s works for scrambled clues.

Marlowe makes an interesting candidate, being a renowned playwright and poet himself, save for one thing: he was murdered in 1593, and by 1593 only 7 of the 38 plays had been written. But here’s where the conspiracy theorists come out full-force: What if Marlowe, for reasons political and personal, faked his own death, and continued to write under nom de plume? Heh heh heh … I like that.

Bottom line: While it can’t be conclusively proven that Shakespeare wrote his plays and sonnets, it can’t be conclusively proven that he didn’t. It’s just a mystery for the ages.

And I hereby add the truism regarding any conspiracy from an unknown Shakespeare to the JFK assassination to the alleged Moon landing hoax: the more participants you have, the least likely it’s a real conspiracy. Presumably an unknown Shakespeare would have at least a handful of co-conspirators, such as a publisher, a go-between, and maybe Shakespeare himself. As the adage goes, a secret held by three or more people is a secret no more.

Literature buffs, aficionados, and professionals who wade into this debate and believe that Shakespeare is Shakespeare are called Stratfordians, after Stratford-on-Avon, Will’s place of birth. Those who take an opposing point of view fall under a variety of labels, depending mainly on who they propose as the real Shakespeare. For example, you have the Baconians, Oxfordians, the Rutlanders, the Marlovians, and the Groupies. To name the most prominent.

Until further notice, I consider myself a Stratfordian.