William Shakespeare is one of the most famous authors in history. After celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death just last year, many people came to realize just how influential and important his works are to people. Even after all these years, Shakespeare’s work is still so present and relevant today. What if Shakespeare didn’t write any of the plays he has his name on, however? What if William Shakespeare was never who we thought? That is what some people believe. Shakespeare did not write any of the plays, and they were all written by the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward De Vere. Although some people think that Edward de Vere wrote the plays, William Shakespeare did write all the plays under his name.
This crazy conspiracy of the plays of William Shakespeare being written by the 17th Earl of Oxford was started by one man, Thomas Looney. Published in 1920, Looney’s book Shakespeare Identified tells all about how Shakespeare could not possibly have written the plays due to his lack of education and instead, the Earl of Oxford wrote them. This Oxfordian Theory has been the
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A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written between 1595 and 1596, when Shakespeare would have been 31 or 32 years old. Oxford was still a child at this time, only nine years old. The only explanation for that would be that Oxford was indeed a child prodigy, like the movie Anonymous claims. Many of the plays were also written after the death of Oxford. The movie once again backs up their claims with the idea that he wrote them all before his death and gave them to another trusted author to be published later. This theory completely ignores the fact that many of the plays; including Macbeth and The Tempest, had been written about current events from the times. These events, like the gunpowder plot, happened after the death of
Shakespeare was a writer of many plays like Romeo and Juliet, or Hamlet but, some people believe that he did not write his plays. In some of the sources they would explain that shakespeare couldn't have wrote the plays. The others sources say otherwise, they say that he could easily imagine how it would be like to be rich and their for him being able to write the plays. From all the evidence that the sources gave, Shakespeare did not or could not write his plays because he was not educated well enough to be able to write the plays with such sophisticated language another reason that Shakespeare was not the writer there's not enough evidence such as copies of the plays.
William Shakespeare was a very famous writer from the 15th century who had very popular poetry, but did he wrote his own plays? There is reason to believe that William Shakespeare did not write his own plays. He came from an all illiterate family, he had no record of his schooling, and when he died, he will had nothing to do with poetry or any writing. William Shakespeare did not write his own plays.
Lastly, The director of Anonymous states that there are no educational records or any other records connecting to Shakespeare. It is nearly impossible to gain the amount of knowledge Shakespeare had with out going to school. There are no records to prove that Shakespeare ever attended the Stratford grammar school, yet the work of who really wrote these plays shows extensive knowledge about medicine, astronomy, art, music, military, law, philosophy, and activities such as royal tennis and falconry (Ten reason). It is unbelievable for one to know all that without even a trace of school. This suggests that some one else wrote the plays because Shakespeare does not have the education and knowledge to do so. Likewise, it is strange how one knows so much about foreign countries without ever leaving their country. Shakespeare’s records show that he has never left
Throughout the last century, a raging phenomenon known as the “Authorship Debate”, has come to light. It disputes whether Shakespeare himself wrote the plays and sonnets or if it was someone else writing under a pseudonym. There are countless theories of who the writer might actually be but the main suspects are Shakespeare himself, Edward de Vere, Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, William Stanley, Roger Manners, Sir Walter Raleigh and Mary Sidney Herbert (Pressley).
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 most argued cases in history is whether or not William Shakespeare was the one to write his own plays, or if he had someone else write them for him. There are numerous amounts of arguments agreeing that Shakespeare wrote his plays, and then there are numerous amounts disagreeing with his penmanship of “his” plays. According to some sources, Shakespeare was an impractical choice to write such famous works of art due to his lack of traveling, and his lack of education (Hechinge). These theories come into play when explaining that Shakespeare was, indeed, a fraud.
The large body of work attributed to William Shakespeare shows education, experience, creativity, and wisdom far beyond what many people are willing to accept came from a single author. Due to the scarcity of facts surrounding Shakespeare’s life, speculation arouse about whether or not he actually wrote his works became more common. In the mid-1800s ideas about other authors were brought forward. However, these theories have little sustenance, and it is likely that the entire body of work attributed to Shakespeare in fact belonged to Shakespeare himself.
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
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 one of the most famous people known to literature. He made thirty-eight plays in his lifetime. Being as famous has he was, there was some controversy. Some controversy that a person may believe involving Shakespeare is the authorship conspiracy. Some people believe that there were other authors thats wrote parts of Shakespeare's plays. According to The Telegraph, Edward de Vere wrote poetry similar to Shakespeare's. Some believe that there is references from de Vere in some of the scripts written by Shakespeare. This theory was put forward in the film Anonymous. Another example of controversy that some people believe in is that there are similarities between Sir Francis Bacon and Shakespeare's plays. This theory that was put
There are a variety of theories that suggest that Sir Francis Bacon was, in fact, William Shakespeare. Supporters of these claims refer to Shakespeare’s writing style, lack of education, and reportedly hidden messages within his texts as some of the evidence that indicates that Bacon was the real author of the many plays and poems attributed to Shakespeare. However, these assertions do not conclusively substantiate the Bacon theory and only attempt to discredit the real William Shakespeare. Therefore, Sir Francis Bacon did not write as William Shakespeare.
While William Shakespeare’s name is written on many famous plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and more, did he actually write the plays? The truth is, that there is no solid proof that William Shakespeare was a writer at all, except for his signature scrawled on the manuscripts. Over the years, many people and organizations have claimed that other people have written the plays, such as, Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, William Stanley, Edward De Vere and even Queen Elizabeth I. All of these people were good writers, and there is a possibility that one of them wrote Shakespeare, but why would somebody write under a pen name? The answer is, they would not, unless they were hiding something. The only person
The authorship of all of Shakespeare’s genius literature is the biggest detective story. It is one that has brought curiosity to the world for centuries and is still very alive today. Has a man who had no evidence that he had ever gone to school, composed brilliant pieces of literature known to all of mankind? It is highly unlikely. There must have been someone else. Scholars are now speculating as to whether Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, is the true author of all of Shakespeare’s publications,
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