# Did they ever resolve the theory that Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespeare plays? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 5, 2011, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003 "2011-11-05T22:54:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/1 "2011-11-05T22:54:16Z")
I remember this theory coming up when I took College Lit 25 years ago. At the time scholars were closely comparing the academic writing styles of Bacon and the Shakespeare plays. The idea was that a scholar like Bacon needed a pen name to hide his association with socially common works like plays. I was reminded of this because they’ve been advertising a movie about William Shakespeare being an uneducated patsy for someone needing a pen name. > **[Francis Bacon | Bacon and Shakespeare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon#Bacon_and_Shakespeare)** > > The Baconian hypothesis of Shakespearean authorship, first proposed in the mid-19th century, contends that Francis Bacon wrote some or even all of the plays conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare. > **[Shakespeare authorship question](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question)** > > The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him. Anti-Stratfordians—a collective term for adherents of the various alternative-authorship theories—believe that Shakespeare of Stratford was a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for some reason—usually social rank, state security, or gender—did not want or could not accept public credit. Although the idea has attr... Amazing how hard it is to verify someone in 1600 wrote these works. > [@](#): > > Shakespeare’s authorship was first questioned in the middle of the 19th century, when adulation of Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time had become widespread.[4] Shakespeare’s biography, particularly his humble origins and obscure life, seemed incompatible with his poetic eminence and his reputation for genius,[5] arousing suspicion that Shakespeare might not have written the works attributed to him.[6] The controversy has since spawned a vast body of literature,[7] and more than 70 authorship candidates have been proposed,[8] including Francis Bacon, the 6th Earl of Derby, Christopher Marlowe, and the 17th Earl of Oxford.[ ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/2 "2011-11-05T23:04:25Z")
Should add that many of the plays do have obscure science references that a poorly educated commoner wouldn’t know. It’s been too long to recall examples but they were mentioned in books I read. I think it’s agreed that William Shakespeare was a commoner with little opportunities for education. He was an actor for certain. But a playwright? Actors at that time were not highly regarded among the social classes. It was not considered dignified or proper work for a gentlemen in 1600. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/3 "2011-11-05T23:18:00Z")
Did Shakespeare have access to books? Because if he did, there was no limit to what he might have known. The 16th Century saw a massive explosion of knowledge following the dissemination of the printing press, with books written not only on every subject known in Europe, but also written for the general reader, and not just for experts. In fact, the period is often referred to as the golden age of knowledge, because information had yet to become specialized into specific fields, and thus far more accessable than it is today. Very smart people with limited formal education are often autodidacts. Let’s put it this way - if Abraham Lincoln could pass the bar after reading some books he found in a barrel, William Shakespeare could write about science and kings. Formal education is vastly overrated. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/4 "2011-11-05T23:18:58Z")
> **[How We Know That Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare: The Historical Facts](https://shakespeareauthorship.com/howdowe.html)** I’ll quote the conclusion of the page: > [@](#): > > How do we know that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare? We know because the historical record tells us so, strongly and unequivocally. The historical evidence demonstrates that one and the same man, William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, was William Shakespeare the player, William Shakespeare the Globe-sharer, and William Shakespeare the author of the plays and poems that bear his name – and no person of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras ever doubted the attribution. No Elizabethan ever suggested that Shakespeare’s plays and poems were written by someone else, or that Shakespeare the player was not Shakespeare the author, or that Shakespeare the Globe-sharer was not Shakespeare of Stratford. No contemporary of Shakespeare’s ever suggested that the name used by the player, the Globe-sharer, or the author was a pseudonym; and none of the major alternative candidates – not Francis Bacon, not the Earl of Oxford, not Christopher Marlowe – had any connection with Shakespeare’s acting company or with his friends and fellow actors. > > Antistratfordians must rely solely upon speculation about what they think the “real” author should have been like, because they cannot produce one historical fact to bolster their refusal to accept who that author actually was. No matter how they try to ignore it or explain it away, the historical record – all of it – establishes William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon as the author of the works traditionally attributed to him. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/5 "2011-11-05T23:21:37Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Should add that many of the plays do have obscure science references that a poorly educated commoner wouldn’t know. It’s been too long to recall examples but they were mentioned in books I read. > > I think it’s agreed that William Shakespeare was a commoner with little opportunities for education. He was an actor for certain. But a playwright? > > Actors at that time were not highly regarded among the social classes. It was not considered dignified or proper work for a gentlemen in 1600. I do not think that it is agreed. [http://www.bardweb.net/man.html](http://www.bardweb.net/man.html) > [@](#): > > There is great conjecture about Shakespeare’s childhood years, especially regarding his education. It is surmised by scholars that Shakespeare attended the free grammar school in Stratford, which at the time had a reputation to rival that of Eton. While there are no records extant to prove this claim, Shakespeare’s knowledge of Latin and Classical Greek would tend to support this theory. In addition, Shakespeare’s first biographer, Nicholas Rowe, wrote that John Shakespeare had placed William “for some time in a free school.” John Shakespeare, as a Stratford official, would have been granted a waiver of tuition for his son. As the records do not exist, we do not know how long William attended the school, but certainly the literary quality of his works suggest a solid education. What is certain is that William Shakespeare never proceeded to university schooling, which has stirred some of the debate concerning the authorship of his works. And while Bacon is a favorite for the one that could had been the real author, what the majority of scholars I have read about do agree is with conclusions like this: [http://www.bardweb.net/debates.html](http://www.bardweb.net/debates.html) > [@](#): > > Francis Bacon, Philosopher and Writer: Bacon has been a traditional favorite of the anti-Stratford camp, and retains a high place on the list of potential candidates. Bacon proponents point toward Bacon’s learning, his correspondences and memoirs (most notably, his notebook, Promus), as well as ciphers and other coincidences. Although Bacon was an undisputed man of letters, his style and expression vary greatly from that of Shakespeare’s works. Bacon also produced such a voluminous output of his own, it’s hard to conceive of him finding spare time enough to produce the quality output of work attributed to the Bard. > > … > > Other Candidates > > Other notable candidates have included William Stanley, Earl of Derby; Ben Jonson; Thomas Middleton; Sir Walter Raleigh (with or without collaboration by Francis Bacon); Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; and even Queen Elizabeth I herself. **There have been dozens of other such nominations since the Bard’s death, and none have yet presented proof enough to discredit the man from Stratford.** ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/6 "2011-11-05T23:41:05Z")
I believe the consensus is that the known works by Bacon and the known works by Shakespeare are sufficiently different in things like vocabulary, grammar, spelling, and style that they are not the work of the same person. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/7 "2011-11-05T23:42:06Z")
The new movie I mentioned in the OP is _Anonymous_. They’ve been running trailers for it the last couple weeks. Sounds like they took the Francis Bacon theory and expanded it to make Shakespeare a drunk and other things. > [@](#): > > Were Shakespeare alive today, he’d surely file a defamation suit against “Anonymous,” the new film from director Roland Emmerich (“Independence Day”) and screenwriter John Orloff. Their revisionist history is ridiculous and baffling. [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/10/28/bloomberg\_articlesLTR5870YHQ0X.DTL](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/10/28/bloomberg_articlesLTR5870YHQ0X.DTL) ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/8 "2011-11-05T23:52:54Z")
It’s nothing more than a run-of-the-mill conspiracy theory, as Sage Rat’s quote says. In order to make a case for Shakespeare not writing Shakespeare’s plays, you must overlook a mountain of evidence to chase at will o’ the wisps. People have criticized Mary Shelley, saying she was too uneducated to write as scientific a text as Frankenstein. Except she went into very little detail except to specify experiments of an electrical nature and dead tissue animation. Basically, info that she could have gleaned from perusing abstracts off of whatever passed for jstor in her time. I think the same is true of Shakespeare. Besides, would Bacon have been so careless as to include a clock in the Roman Republic? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/9 "2011-11-05T23:56:57Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > The new movie I mentioned in the OP is _Anonymous_. They’ve been running trailers for it the last couple weeks. > > Sounds like they took the Francis Bacon theory and expanded it to make Shakespeare a drunk and other things. > > [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/10/28/bloomberg\_articlesLTR5870YHQ0X.DTL](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/10/28/bloomberg_articlesLTR5870YHQ0X.DTL) Actually, for the movie _Anonymous_ they took Edward de Vere as the real author, there is only one small problem: [Black Adder] It was bollocks! [/BA] And this is even before taking into account “the brute fact that Edward de Vere died in 1604, while Shakespeare continued to write, several times with partners, until 1613.” [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/wouldnt-it-be-cool-if-shakespeare-wasnt-shakespeare.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/wouldnt-it-be-cool-if-shakespeare-wasnt-shakespeare.html) > [@](#): > > Professors of Shakespeare — and I was one once upon a time — are blissfully unaware of the impending disaster that this film means for their professional lives. Thanks to “Anonymous,” undergraduates will be confidently asserting that Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare for the next 10 years at least, and profs will have to waste countless hours explaining the obvious. “Anonymous” subscribes to the Oxfordian theory of authorship, the contention that Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford, wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Among Shakespeare scholars, the idea has roughly the same currency as the faked moon landing does among astronauts. > > The good news is that “Anonymous” makes an extraordinarily poor case for the Oxfordian theory. > [@](#): > > … the liberties with facts in “Anonymous” become serious when they enter our conception of real history. In scholarship, chronology does matter. And the fatal weakness of the Oxfordian theory is chronological, a weakness that “Anonymous” never addresses: the brute fact that Edward de Vere died in 1604, while Shakespeare continued to write, several times with partners, until 1613. “Macbeth” and “The Tempest” were inspired by events posthumous to the Earl of Oxford: the gunpowder plot in 1605 and George Somers’s misadventure to Bermuda in 1609. How can anyone be inspired by events that happened after his death?So, enough. It is impossible that Edward de Vere wrote Shakespeare. Notice that I am not saying improbable; it is impossible. Better scholars than I will ever be have articulated the scale of the idiocy. Jonathan Bate in a single chapter of “The Genius of Shakespeare” annihilated the Oxfordian thesis. If you want to read the definitive treatment, there is James Shapiro’s more recent “Contested Will,” although that book is nearly as absurd as its subject, because using a brain like Shapiro’s on the authorship question is like bringing an F-22 to an alley knife fight, and he kind of knows it. He ties his argument into the larger question of art and its relationship to the artist’s life, but even so the whole business is evidently a waste of his vast talent. > [@](#): > > The original Oxfordian, the aptly named J. Thomas Looney, who proposed the theory in 1920, believed that Shakespeare’s true identity remained a secret because, he said, “it has been left mainly in the hands of literary men.” In his rejection of expertise, at least, Looney was far ahead of his time. This same antielitism is haunting every large intellectual question today. We hear politicians opine on their theories about climate change and evolution as a way of displaying how little they know. When Rick Perry compared climate-change skeptics like himself to Galileo in a Republican debate, I dearly wished that the next question had been “Can you explain Galileo’s theory of falling bodies?” Of all the candidates with their various rejections of the scientific establishment, how many could name the fundamental laws of thermodynamics that students learn in high school? Healthy skepticism about elites has devolved into an absence of basic literacy. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/10 "2011-11-06T00:03:27Z")
The proponents of the Oxfordian idea I’ve encountered have included, as part of their lunacy, the notion that de Vere faked his own death. Which should tell you something about the quality of the ideas. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/11 "2011-11-06T00:05:09Z")
The one mystery I would like to see resolved is the matter of Shakespeare willing only his secondbest bed to Anne Hathaway. > [@Chronos](#): > > The proponents of the Oxfordian idea I’ve encountered have included, as part of their lunacy, the notion that de Vere faked his own death. Yep, that sounds reasonable to me. ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/12 "2011-11-06T00:06:22Z")
As far as I’m concerned, that Latin anagram about “F Baconis” was the absolute clincher. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/13 "2011-11-06T00:18:17Z")
> [@AppallingGael](#): > > As far as I’m concerned, that Latin anagram about “F Baconis” was the absolute clincher. :dubious: > **[Testing a Bacon-Shakespeare Cipher](https://shakespeareauthorship.com/bacpenl.html)** > [@](#): > > Since so many of the same points are raised by both Baconians and Oxfordians, the case for Shakespeare is ably presented elsewhere on the Shakespeare Authorship page. One major difference between the Oxfordians and the Baconians is that the latter are much more likely to display a fondness for cryptography. There have been many ingenious, complicated (and sometimes nutty) efforts to show that Bacon hid the evidence of his authorship within the works themselves, in code or cipher. The most comprehensive response to these efforts is The Shakespeare Ciphers Examined (1957), by William F. and Elizebeth S. Friedman, which is thought to have pretty much demolished cryptographical claims for Bacon. Not likely to be a clincher. ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/14 "2011-11-06T00:28:29Z")
It isn’t even a theory, except in the headbangy ‘Obama is a sekrit Muslim’ kind of way. There’s _no_ evidence that Shakespeare didn’t write the plays, and plenty that he did. Basically, centuries after Shakespeare’s death, he no longer fit some people’s image of what a great playwright should be like. The Romantics felt he should be a noble and an intellectual, not some mere commoner. Hence, stupid conspiracy theories to force the facts into line with what people wanted to believe. As for the idea that ‘he wasn’t educated enough’ - for one thing, he was plenty educated. And for another, whoever wrote those plays was a genius - he had an amazing mind that worked a dozen times as fast and as fluently as most people’s. He could perfectly well have educated himself, a dozen times as fast and as easily as most people. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/15 "2011-11-06T03:03:31Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > The one mystery I would like to see resolved is the matter of Shakespeare willing only his secondbest bed to Anne Hathaway. I xcannot remember the historian, but I have read that his willing his secondbest bed to Anne Hathaway was sort of private, affectionate gesture on Shakespeare’s part, the seondbest bed being the one they had most often shared. He was willng her a sentimental, but well used article. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/16 "2011-11-06T03:13:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The proponents of the Oxfordian idea I’ve encountered have included, as part of their lunacy, the notion that de Vere faked his own death. Which should tell you something about the quality of the ideas. That’s a strawman. So are claims that the entire argument rests of cryptography or class warfare. There are real legitimate pieces of evidence but some people would rather point at the silly stuff because it’s easy to dismiss that. And then they dismiss the entire argument without ever acknowledging the other evidence exists. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/17 "2011-11-06T03:17:23Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And this is even before taking into account “the brute fact that Edward de Vere died in 1604, while Shakespeare continued to write, several times with partners, until 1613.” Of course, there’s no way that Edward de Vere, who died in 1604, could have published the First Folio in 1623. So obviously it must have been William Shakespeare, who died in 1616, who must have published the First Folio in 1623. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/18 "2011-11-06T03:23:20Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There are real legitimate pieces of evidence but some people would rather point at the silly stuff because it’s easy to dismiss that. And then they dismiss the entire argument without ever acknowledging the other evidence exists. Name three. I have yet to see any Oxfordian or Baconian to ever offer the slightest evidence at all. So, do you have anyone who lived at the time writing that “Shakespeare’s plays were not written by Shakespeare”? Do you have anything written by Oxford saying, “I wrote X, the play attributed to William Shakespeare”? Name three pieces of actual evidence for the Oxford (or Bacon) claim. (sounds of crickets chirping) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/19 "2011-11-06T03:24:36Z")
> [@eclectic\_wench](#): > > There’s _no_ evidence that Shakespeare didn’t write the plays, and plenty that he did. Actually there’s amazingly little evidence. Nobody’s disputing that there was a person named William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon who also lived in London. And nobody’s disputing that somebody wrote the plays and poems that are now attributed to William Shakespeare. But the connection between the William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon and the William Shakespeare who wrote the plays is surprisingly small. Nobody connected the two men in Shakespeare’s lifetime. It basically comes down to one person, Ben Jonson, who identified the playwright as being from Stratford-upon-Avon in 1623. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003/20 "2011-11-06T03:34:24Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Name three. > > I have yet to see any Oxfordian or Baconian to ever offer the slightest evidence at all. > > So, do you have anyone who lived at the time writing that “Shakespeare’s plays were not written by Shakespeare”? > > Do you have anything written by Oxford saying, “I wrote X, the play attributed to William Shakespeare”? > > Name three pieces of actual evidence for the Oxford (or Bacon) claim. > > (sounds of crickets chirping) Tell the crickets to quiet down. Edward de Vere was known as a poet and playwright. But he stopped publically writing when it became dangerous. But there are contemporary references that he continued to write under a pseudonym. The plays were originally published under the name Shake-spear not William Shakespeare. References in the works show that the writer pronounced his name Shake-spear with spear rhyming with deer. Edward de Vere’s coat of arms was an arm shaking a spear. William Shakespeare actually signed his name Shaksper or Shaxper and pronounced it to rhyme with Baxter. There have been a large number of words that have been attributed to Shakespeare’s invention. He was supposedly the first person to ever use them. But people have since found out that they many of these words were not first used in a work by Shakespeare - they first appeared in early works by Edward de Vere. Examinations of Edward de Vere’s personal library have found that quotes, characters, and plotlines that appeared in Shakespeare’s plays have been underlined in de Vere’s books. So apparently whoever wrote the Shakespeare plays was doing a lot of research of de Vere’s library. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-they-ever-resolve-the-theory-that-francis-bacon-wrote-the-shakespeare-plays/602003.md?page=2)