Shakespeare's Conspiracy Theories

One cannot write thirty-six plays, one hundred and fifty-four sonnets and two long narrative poems if they were ordinary. But unbelievably, William Shakespeare did just that from 1564 – 1616. People have questioning how Shakespeare achieved writing such great pieces of literature, when the behind the scenes story does not add up. There are no records to prove he wrote anything and there is proof someone else did what he took credit for. In my opinion, Macbeth and Titus Andronicus, two of Shakespeare’s plays are strong examples of pieces of literature that was not actually created by Shakespeare. I believe William Shakespeare, the man with

The first to be presumed the writer is Shakespeare himself. Many theorists believe it wasn’t Shakespeare due to the fact that he was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon, which was a poor countryside area. Shakespeare was a glove-maker with a low level of education. He wasn’t a

Shakespeare, the man who wrote 37 plays and more than a hundred sonnets, is known throughout the world. Many people consider him one of the best English playwrights of our time, others say that he was a genius.

In 1564, a man was born by the name of William Shakespeare. He was born to a poor family, was given little education, and had no interaction with sophisticated society. Thirty-eight plays and over 150 sonnets are not attributed to this ignorant man. Those who believe that Shakespeare was the author have no definitive proof but instead point to Hamlet’s declaration: "The play’s the thing(Satchell 71)." The true author, however, lies hidden behind he name of Shakespeare. Edward de Vere the premier Earl of Oxford is not only considered a great poet in history, but he may also be the great playwright who concocted the sonnets and plays which are now attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford, England.

One of the first men brought up to be the credible writer of each work of art was Sir Francis Bacon (Hechinge). It is believed that he wrote the plays due to his level of education and social status (Hechinge). In the article it states, “As a leading figure of the English Renaissance, he certainly had the biography for it: educated at Cambridge, widely traveled, Bacon was a famous philosopher, one of the inventors of the scientific method, who also led a literary society,” and it is know that someone with an education has a better chance at knowing 29,066 different words (Hechinge). Not only was it believed because of his higher education, but many people believed they found secret messages in Shakespeare’s plays that pointed to Sir Francis Bacon being the writer (Hechinge). A man named Dr. Isaac Platt found out that by extracting certain letters from this line in Hamlet, “"The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables,” ended up with an anagram of “FR. BACONI NATI,” which according to Latin, means that Francis Bacon was the true playwright (Wheeler)

They proposed many other claimants to the Shakespearean works but the most popular was Edward de Vere. I can understand why many of people’s opinions are this way because there is just so much evidence that Oxford could have authored them, but there is still just as much evidence that Shakespeare did write them. From personal knowledge, we all know that we don’t have many documentations nor knowledge of Shakespeare’s life. But after analyzing and putting pieces together of the actual minimal bits of information we DO have, in the end, they all point towards Shakespeare and Shakespeare only. All the websites I looked at contained many convincing and reasonable points from both sides of the argument but the following evidence is what proved to me, that Shakspeare indeed, did write Shakespeare. I learned that Shakespeare went to an excellent grammar school to learn Latin, in which is precisely needed for creating the plays and sonnets we have today. We understand that although there were many ways he wrote his name, still a nobleman like de Vere or Bacon couldn’t have presented their works like that. Also the fact that Shakespeare was known to do collaborations with other lowly playwrights because it was common in that era, proves that the wealthy nobles could never have collaborated with average

      Abstract:  The debate over the legitimacy of the authorship of Shakespearean works has been disputed for centuries. While many scholars have held beliefs that Shakespeare's works have been written by figures such as Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, William Stanley, and others, the most heated debate today is between William Shakespeare and Edward DeVere, the Earl of Oxford. Each side of this debate has many followers, the Stratfordians, or those who claim Shakespeare to be the true author, and the Oxfordians who believe that true credit should go to DeVere. My paper, far from being a complete analysis of the possibilities of Shakespearean authorship, attempts to summarize and rationalize the

The Shakespeare conspiracy is pertaining to the fact that Shakespeare did not write his famous poems, plays and sonnets; claiming he simply used someone else's work and labeled it in his own name. Theorists state that the plays contained too much knowledge of foreign and distant places and too much familiarity with court life and the affairs of court. They stated that Shakespeare was someone so far down in the social class that he couldn’t have acquired this knowledge. The various works of Shakespeare contain information showing the amount of familiarity the author has with such modernized sports including tennis and bowling. Theorists also claim that the plays have too wide a range of style to have been written by someone without an advanced

To start from the beginning of the controversy, the earliest actual documentation of such findings began in 1785 by an oxford scholar named James Wilmot. It was here that when James came up “empty-handed” of any evidence of Shakespeare’s plays did he come to the conclusion that it had to have been someone else and that someone was Sir Francis Bacon. James however never reported anything and on his deathbed actually destroyed his writings, but not before telling a fellow scholar, James Corton Cowell, his findings. Cowell would leave and make a presentation to the Ipswich Philosophic Society, and so began the greatest mystery of whether William Shakespeare was a famous playwright or a fraud taking credit for the work of someone else.

Shakespeare was a playwright from Stratford who had arguably the most influential affect on English literature and the English language. His works are still praised to this day for their divine superiority, however, controversy in exceeding amounts has risen over the dispute of his authorship. This controversy has been the topic of many arguments between differently opinionated scholars who support opposing theories and beliefs (Friedman XV). "A difficult dilemma confronts biographers who tell the story of the glove maker's son from Stratford-on-Avon who is supposed to have become the world's greatest poet and dramatist" (Whalen 3). It may seem odd that this confusion and doubt had come to light in the first place, as the origin of

Who was Shakespeare? Was he a man from Stratford-Upon-Avon who started with little and became the greatest English author to ever live; or was he a privileged Earl who was a favorite at Queen Elizabeth’s court? That is the great mystery. This particular mystery is difficult to solve because of the lack of documentary evidence. The Elizabethans did not believe in getting everything in writing as people do today. Therefore, the truth may never be known with certainty. However, evidence does exist to support at least two theories about the Shakespearean authorship: one that the man from Stratford wrote the works, the other that Edward de Vere the Earl of Oxford was the author. The question then becomes, which

Even though Shakespeare of Stratford is commonly believed to have written the plays ascribed to him, Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford is a better candidate because he was educated in the royal court mannerisms and there was coincidences in Hamlet’s life with same thing happening in de Vere’s, he had the proper training to understand the complex grammar of Shakespeare’s plays, was a well known for his writing, and also had a shaking spear on the Oxford Coat of Arms.

A question that has become a huge debate among scholars for at least a century. As well as at times often caused an obsession f0r many Shakespearean scholars. The question on Shakespeare's authorship of his accredited work like the lines quoted above.

William Shakespeare was an English playwright who lived during the Elizabethan era. He is considered one of the greatest writers of the English language and his influence upon the language shapes the way modern English is now used. Much controversy exists around the possibility of Shakespeare not being educated enough to write his own plays although most scholars believe there is not enough evidence to prove otherwise. One of his most famous plays is a tragedy titled Hamlet which was believed to be written between 1599 and 1601. There now exists a newly discovered title page for a version of Hamlet published in 1587 - twelve years before Shakespeare supposedly wrote his own. The existence of such a Hamlet proves that Shakespeare did not write Hamlet himself, but plagiarised it from a lesser-known playwright.

Shakespeare is possibly one of the best known author ever. He has written many works that were rewritten to conform to modern times, and many that are so good that they could not be changed. He has also sparked one of the largest debates in history: did he actually write the works that he supposedly wrote? Or was it a pen name for someone else, the true author? In this debate, I have taken the opposing side, I believe that Shakespeare did not write his works like we have been led to believe our entire lives.