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The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him.
R. C. Churchill says that the first documented expression of doubt about Shakespeare's authorship came in 1760, in a farce entitled High Life Below Stairs in which a Miss Kitty poses the question: "Who wrote Shakespeare?" The Duke responds "Ben Jonson." Lady Bab then cries; "Oh, no!
— Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1. Did Shakespeare Really Write All of His Plays? In this video, Professor Jonathan Bate joins Jennifer Reid to discuss the question of who wrote the plays of William Shakespeare. In order to view this embedded content, you will need to accept advertising cookies.
Jun 18, 2019 · An early believer in the non-existent apology was the prolific Shakespeare scholar, F.E. Halliday: “There had been numerous appreciative references to ‘friendly Shakespeare’ and his work since the time of Henry Chettle’s apology for Greene’s attack at the beginning of his career” (1).
- Where’s The Paper Trail?
- Why The “Vertiginous” Gap in Historical Records?
- Why only Cryptic Posthumous Hints?
- Why Did Family and Friends Never Suggest He Was A Writer?
- Why The Deafening Silence When He died?
- Why Did Shakespeare Authorship Doubts Arise So early?
- Will’s Will: Another Shoe That Doesn’T Fit?
- The “Star of Poets” Could Barely Sign His Own Name?
- The Creator of Portia Failed to Educate His Own Daughters?
- How Can We Explain The Total Mismatch Between The Works and The Alleged Author?
Despite hundreds of years of exhaustive research, no one has found a single letter written by Shakspere to anyone (in most surviving personal records, that or some variation is how his name is spelled — not “Shakespeare” or “Shake-speare,” the almost uniform spelling in the published works). Nor has anyone found any book Shakspere owned, any letter...
During Shakspere’s lifetime, references to the author “Shakespeare” are basically impersonal. Some don’t even use the name, but just allude cryptically to works like Venus and Adonis. Many references imply “Shakespeare” is a pen name — that the author is hidden in some way (see #6 on early doubts). By contrast, the documents we have relating person...
The first suggestions linking the author to Stratford-upon-Avon were published seven years after Shakspere’s death in the 1623 First Folio. The Folio, and the monument in Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church, are both full of puzzling oddities raising questions about the author’s identity. Ben Jonson wrote two prefatory poems in the Folio (one shown abo...
At least ten eyewitnesses who knew Shakspere or his family, and who left behind significant writings, never mentioned he was a writer. Shakspere’s son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, kept a journal in which he wrote of the “excellent poet” and Warwickshire native Michael Drayton. But Hall, among at least ten eyewitnesses with personal knowledge of Shakspere...
In an age of copious eulogies, the reaction to Shakspere’s death in 1616 was eerie silence. Jonson’s non-reaction (see #4) is the strangest example. Compare the flood of grief and eulogies for Shakspere’s fellow actor Richard Burbage, said to eclipse the mourning for Queen Anne when she and Burbage died in 1619. Yet we’re supposed to believe this s...
Authorship doubts arose more than 30 years before the First Folio. Dozens of writings raising questions about the author’s identity were published for decades before Shakspere’s death in 1616. The authorship question thus did notfirst arise (as often falsely claimed) in the 19th century. The authorship debate began right away when these works were ...
Shakspere’s will, despite its detailed disposal of household items, makes no mention of books (not even a family Bible), manuscripts, desks, musical instruments, or anything suggesting literary, artistic, or intellectual interest. He cruelly disinherited his wife of more than 30 years, leaving her only his “second-best bed,” at odds with the theme ...
The only accepted specimens of Shakspere’s handwriting are six tortured, almost illegible signatures. An expert with no stake in the authorship dispute has declared they were written by different people. Some may have been signed on his behalf. Read more about how scholars have interpreted these clumsy markings and take a look for yourself:
Shakspere did not bother to educate his daughters. Like his parents, they were apparently illiterate — in stark contrast to the highly educated young women in many Shakespeare plays, including Portia in The Merchant of Venice; Miranda, tutored by her father Prospero in The Tempest; and Helena, whose learning and skill as a healer save the king’s li...
The documented life of Shakspere of Stratford is jarringly inconsistent with the plays and poems of Shakespeare. The Stratford man was a middle-class social climber, yet the works express contempt for the attitudes necessary for success in his social milieu. They reflect, instead, an unmistakably aristocratic viewpoint, as Walt Whitman recognized (...
Jun 16, 2014 · The prose work for which he is best remembered, though, was An Apology for Actors, written in 1612. This stoutly defended actors from the charges of lewd and disorderly behaviour made against them by Puritans and others.
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Jan 8, 2019 · The discrepancies between the conventional view that William from Stratford wrote the works ascribed to Shakespeare and extant documentary evidence has led to the Shakespeare authorship debate. What would scientists make of this?
