A Discussion About Whether Shakespeare is Shakespeare without Dismissiveness

[bup]

@Trinopus

Alias Shakespeare by Joe Sobran. It’s been a while since I read it, so I’m going by memory.

He argued that William Shakespeare of Stratford didn’t have the education to write the plays. Shakespeare wouldn’t have read Plutarch, wouldn’t have travelled to Italy, wouldn’t have known courtly manners and speech, etc. The playwright showed too much knowledge of these matters.

Sobran is wrong. Anybody could have read Plutarch’s history.

Here’s a nice essay that covers Shakespeare’s knowledge of history and Italy.
Shakespeare didn’t ever go to Italy, but he didn’t know jack about it, either. He set two entire plays in Venice, without ever using the word canal. He also created a city near Venice called “Belmont.” WTF?

You know who else set plays in Italy? Everybody. It was the place to set comedies.

Shakespeare didn’t know a whole lot about courtly manners, and it shows. Here’s an essay about that.

More convincing is Sobran’s argument regarding the mysterious lover addressed in the Sonnets. He suggested how the sonnets point very directly at De Vere, while having no obvious references to Shakespeare.

It’s easy to take a piece of writing, pick a person, and pick out the pieces that are “perfect matches.”

Here, we get into qualitative analysis that leaves lots of room for saying whatever you want, and it’s hard to disprove anything. I don’t know how to convince somebody about writing styles and so forth, myself, so I defer to the experts. Here’s a specific essay about Sobran’s take on the sonnets, if that helps.