# Shakespeare vs Bacon **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 31, 2000, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099 "2000-10-31T16:39:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DRY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@DRY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DRY)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/21 "2000-11-01T06:49:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RealityChuck \* > **Shakespeare’s name was on the plays, and there is plenty of historical evidence that William Shakespeare was working in the theater at the time the plays were written** This is quite true. As a matter of fact, Shakespeare was an actor before he was a playwright, and, early on, he was criticized for having the temerity to write or revise plays, mere actor that he was. There is a reference made by another author (Marlowe, if I recall correctly), which parodied dialogue in one of Shakespeare’s early efforts. ( **King Henry VI, Part 3** ) Marlowe wrote about “Shake-scenes” and wrote derisively about “a tiger’s heart, wrapped in a player’s (actor’s) hide”, which was a twisted line from the above mentioned play. My cite for the above, by the way, is Issac Asimov’s Guide To Shakespeare, which I do not have with me. I will try to provide a more comprehensive description later. But the point is, Shakespeare was already known as an actor before he (or someone else, if you will) became famous as an author. Personally, I think that it’s a bit farfetched that someone else wrote the plays: to accomplish this would have required a pretty massive conspiracy on the part of many people. ---
**Author:** ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/22 "2000-11-01T13:23:37Z")
> [@](#): > > There are other theories besides the Bacon and Oxford ones. One is that several different people wrote the plays but Shakespeare took credit for some reason. Thre might be a _grain_ of truth in this insofar as Shakespeare was working with the theatre companies who were performing his plays and it is likely that odd words and lines, and possibly even short speeches, were added by the performers during rehearsals just as an actor’s ad-libbed line might find its way into a film screenplay. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/23 "2000-11-01T13:34:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bibliophage \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by dtilque \* > > \*\*One strong piece of evidence for this theory is that there are some 17,000 different words used in the plays. This is an incredible number. Your typical author doesn’t use even half that number. > > \*\* > > Whatever else you may say about him, Shakespeare was **not** a typical author. \*\* Can’t find a link, but I’ve seen a pretty long list of words Shakespeare apparently made up himself (some of which are still in use, most didn’t catch on). At least, he has the first citations for a lot of them. As for documentation, his will (giving his wife his “second best bed”) is a pretty famous document, too. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/24 "2000-11-01T13:37:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TomH \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > There are other theories besides the Bacon and Oxford ones. One is that several different people wrote the plays but Shakespeare took credit for some reason. > > Thre might be a _grain_ of truth in this insofar as Shakespeare was working with the theatre companies who were performing his plays and it is likely that odd words and lines, and possibly even short speeches, were added by the performers during rehearsals just as an actor’s ad-libbed line might find its way into a film screenplay. > \*\* Not to mention that plagiarism was rampant at the time. Shakespeare took a fair number of story lines pretty much direct from a number of other writers, living and dead. And, as a known crowd-pleaser, it wouldn’t be surprising for other writers to have stolen from HIM (although if they’re obscure today, they probably deserved it). ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/25 "2000-11-01T14:23:51Z")
There is more than a grain of truth in the claim that others contributed, in the sense that Shakespeare probably did collaborate with other playwrights, especially in some of the earlier plays. This is a far more interesting question than misguided speculation about Bacon, Oxford or anyone else. A number of comments can be made on some of the other points raised above. (1) The first rule of historical research in the early modern period is that arguments based on the spelling of proper names are usually nonsense, especially when the spellings appear in print. The idea that there is something significant about the spelling of Shakespeare’s name on the printed texts of the plays defies everything which is known about the practice of compositors in the period. This is the same reason why the plays are unlikely to contain encrypted messages. No one would have trusted the compositors to set the spellings exactly as drafted. (2) The vocabulary argument is not as simple as it seems. Hypothesising the existance of a secret committee does not solve the problem. The members of the committee would have had moreorless the same overlapping vocabularies. What the large vocabulary does indicate is extraordinary linguistic inventiveness. This is not an attribute usually associated with committees. (3) The claim that ‘in the Renaissance period in England no courtiers were allowed to publish poetry’ is simply untrue. Courtiers were probably the group most likely to circulate poetical works. What many of them were reluctant to do was to publish (particularly print) works of any sort under their own name. This was not a firm rule - Bacon printed his prose works under his own name - and it ceased to matter at all once the author was dead. If Oxford had been reluctant to claim credit for the plays, he would simply have published them anonymously. A pen-name was unnecessary. One might also wonder what he had lose by claiming authorship. If anyone could have broken convention, he could have. Later in the seventeenth century a number of peers did openly write for the public stage without damaging their reputations. (4) All the existing evidence is consistent with the view that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the London actor of that name and that he was the author of most of the plays attributed to him. Contemporaries clearly thought so. The amount and type of evidence which survives about him is what one would expect. Shakespeare as ‘Shakespeare’ is still the simplest explanation. (5) Oxford is one of the least likely individuals to have written the plays - he died in 1604. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/26 "2000-11-01T15:06:37Z")
> [@](#): > > [T]he names on the plays were always spelled “Shakespeare, about half the time with a hyphen which generally denoted a made up name or pseudonym”. Perhaps the hyphen simply means that “Shakspere” was making a play on his own name, changing it to the more evocative “Shake-speare.” > [@](#): > > Raised by illiterate parents it seems odd that a commoner such as Shakespere would not only learn how to read and write, but also become an expert in law, court life, ancient languages, geography, music, painting, history, biblical scholarship and all the other subjects that it appears the author of Shakespeare must have known quite well. **There’s** that elitist argument I was talking about. Gosh, if his parents were illiterate, there’s _no way_ Shakespeare could have educated _himself_ is there? :rolleyes: We have many examples in this country of children of illiterate parents who did quite well for themselves. Abraham Lincoln springs to mind. Anyone who has a desire to learn and the native ability can do so in spite of their environment. Happens all the time. The annals of history are filled with self-educated geniuses. This argument also presumes that Shakespeare was operating in a vacuum, when in fact, he would have had all the earlier plays of the other playwrights of the era as reference material. From these, he could easily learn such things as the nuances of “court life,” or at least the playwright’s take on court life. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/27 "2000-11-01T15:21:11Z")
Spellings were far from standardized at the time, even of one’s own name. Only a fraction of the population was literate, and even the literate fraction didn’t put much importance on spelling. That remained true until well into the 19th century here in the US, and I’m sure it was true in Britain, too. As for a commoner knowing nothing of court life, just think about what London was like then. Even though it was the world’s largest city, it wasn’t all that big by modern standards - you can walk entirely across what was Shakespeare’s London in less than an hour. People mixed with each other, traded stories and gossip, met travelers to and from other lands and got THEIR stories, even the nobles didn’t stay entirely in their own world. Virtually all the written material that could be had in Europe was available too, to anyone who wanted it. To say that Shakespeare didn’t write all that stuff because a commoner from the provinces couldn’t have is just silly - “elitist” is too kind. Falling back on some evidenceless conspiracy theory is an all-too-familiar sight. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/28 "2000-11-01T15:26:34Z")
All quotes below from **ren** : > [@](#): > > In fact, the “records of (Shakespere’s) lifetime almost always spelled his name Shakespere” while the names on the… Shakespeare didn’t spell his name consistently. Few people of the period did. In fact, there’s only one surviving example of Christopher Marlowe’s signature, and he spelled his own name there as Marl **ey**. So this argument against Will is no argument at all. > [@](#): > > There is, in fact, no evidence that Shakespere was even literate. No direct evidence, but again there’s little evidence for the education of **any** commoners from Elizabethan England. But we do know Stratford had a grammar school at the time, which Shakespeare would have attended. Arguments that he “couldn’t” have known all the things the plays indicate he knew, are so much Oxbridge elitism. > [@](#): > > 1. If we are to consider any other source than the similarly-named “Shakespere”, we are obviously dealing with someone who wrote under a pen name. Yes, but you’re starting from the assumption that it _is_ a pen name and not the real name of the author. You’re building a house of cards: assumptions on top of assumptions. > [@](#): > > During his life, he was often associated with writers and theater companies, and was also known as a writer and poet. Quite strikingly, although Oxford was "praised…for his poetry and his plays… And here’s where the Oxfordian argument’s case collapses. The entire case for Oxford rests on the assumption he used a pen name because his reputation would suffer if he were known to be a poet and playwright. _But he wrote poetry and plays under his own name!_ If there was shame in such endeavors, obviously it was one he felt he could bear. > [@](#): > > Also, there are reams and reams of studies which also show profuse and compelling similarities between the events of de Vere’s life and the contents of Shakespeare’s plays (wayyy to many to quote here. Yeah, usually Oxfordians point to the similarities between Hamlet and de Vere’s life. But this argument misses two very important points: 1. A lot happens in Hamlet. It’d be hard _not_ to find events there that correspond to the lives of many nobles of the time. The same goes for many of Shakespeare’s plays about nobles, which frankly is most of them. 2. The story of Hamlet (and most of the plays, for that matter) was old before Shakespeare or de Vere were even born. While Shakespeare wrote the play, the plot was an old standard. > [@](#): > > Edward DeVere would have had to use a penname\*\* to publish any works of plays or poetry under the societal standards of the time. Yes, but as above, you’ve already claimed he _did_ publish under his own name. All arguments against the man from Stratford really come down to Oxbridge snobbery. “He didn’t go to our fancy colleges, so he must have been too ignorant to write the greatest canon in English literature.” Bite me, blueblooded pinky extenders! ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/29 "2000-11-01T15:33:29Z")
**ElvisL1ves** : > [@](#): > > As for a commoner knowing nothing of court life, just think about what London was like then. …People mixed with each other, traded stories and gossip, met travelers to and from other lands and got THEIR stories… Good point, **ElvisL1ves** , and I would just add that Shakespeare undisputedly was an actor who performed at court regularly, so he had direct access to all the gossip and rumor among the “upper classes.” ---
**Author:** ![Kate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f04885/32.png) [@Kate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kate)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/30 "2000-11-01T16:42:08Z")
Great discussion, folks. In one of the posted links supporting the Oxford argument, it was mentioned that a lot of Shakespeare’s sources were not available in English at the time. So is it enough that The Bard used previous and current plays as his background material? Understanding court life is one thing, but knowledge of Greek/Latin/etc. indicates a more highly educated man. And yes, history is full of self-educated people, but if I remember correctly, conditions in England in the 16th century were not conducive to self-education. Commoners just didn’t have access to material the same way that we do today. If Shakespeare wasn’t educated conventionally, he must have made himself literate (no mean feat) AND learned at least Greek and Latin, probably Italian too. How much spare time did he HAVE? In addition, one site pointed out that his daughter couldn’t read or write. Would not a literate father have wanted the same for his daughter, or is this a gender role issue of the time? Enlighten me. /Kate ---
**Author:** ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/31 "2000-11-01T16:47:49Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by ElvisL1ves_ > Shakespeare took a fair number of story lines pretty much direct from a number of other writers, living and dead. Now you mention it, I can’t think of a single play, other than some of the comedies and _King Lear_ which is not based on an earlier, established story. > [@](#): > > As for a commoner knowing nothing of court life … The argument about court life also begs the question of whether Shakespeare’s account of court life was _accurate_ or not. I have yet to see any evidence that it is any more accurate than you would expect a piece of intelligent guesswork to be. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Five_ > Arguments that he “couldn’t” have known all the things the plays indicate he knew, are so much Oxbridge elitism. Elitism, yes. But what has Oxford (other than the Earl) or Cambridge to do with it? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/32 "2000-11-01T17:50:50Z")
**Kate** wrote: > [@](#): > > Understanding court life is one thing, but knowledge of Greek/Latin/etc. indicates a more highly educated man. As **Five** pointed out, Stratford had a “grammar school.” (Closer to a prep school than to our American “grammar schools.”) Lessons in Latin and Greek would have been standard for such a school. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/33 "2000-11-01T18:07:35Z")
**TomH** : > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > _Originally posted by **Five** _ > > Arguments that he “couldn’t” have known all the things the plays indicate he knew, are so much Oxbridge elitism. > > Elitism, yes. But what has Oxford (other than the Earl) or Cambridge to do with it? Sorry, I shouldn’t have used an obscure term like that. Oxford and Cambridge universities are the equivalent of the Ivy League in the United Kingdom. “Oxbridge” is a blended word used as a single adjective to refer to both of them. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/34 "2000-11-01T18:26:46Z")
> [@](#): > > And yes, history is full of self-educated people, but if I remember correctly, conditions in England in the 16th century were not conducive to self-education. Commoners just didn’t have access to material the same way that we do today. In one of the posted links supporting the Oxford argument, it was mentioned that a lot of Shakespeare’s sources were not available in English at the time. So is it enough that The Bard used previous and current plays as his background material? Understanding court life is one thing, but knowledge of Greek/Latin/etc. indicates a more highly educated man. Good question, Kate. Let’s take this one language at a time. Greek – Please feel free to correct me, but I can’t think of any source used by Shakespeare that was available ONLY in Greek. (He would have read Plutarch and Homer in translation.) In any case, he probably learned some Greek at the Stratford grammar school. Latin – As spoke- has noted, grammar school education in Shakespeare’s time meant INTENSE Latin – composition as well as reading and translation. Like most people in the Renaissance with even the slightest formal education, he would have been more proficient in Latin than all but a handful of classical scholars are today. French – The author of the plays definitely knew French (he used it in a couple of scenes of _Henry V_, and there are scattered phrases elsewhere). It’s true that most English aristocrats knew French, but so did many people who weren’t aristocrats – and we know that Shakespeare, in particular, lived with a French family for a while. He could have learned the language from them, or from any of the numerous French Protestants in London who made a living as language teachers. Italian – IIRC, the source for _Othello_ was available only in Italian, suggesting that the author of the plays had at least some reading knowledge. But, as with French, Shakespeare might have known a native speaker who could tutor him or translate – or he could have figured it out for himself, as Italian doesn’t pose many difficulties for somebody already proficient in Latin. In any case, conditions in sixteenth-century London were VERY conducive to self-education – booksellers and language teachers abounded. As for your second question – Shakespeare wasn’t around much when his children were young, and probably didn’t have much to say about their education. He wouldn’t have won any awards for his devotion as a husband and father. ---
**Author:** ![Nixon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@Nixon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nixon)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/35 "2000-11-01T18:29:24Z")
IMHO: The best way to look at this “debate” is to read the various Internet sites. There you will find that the Shakespeare adherents present the most logical, even handed, scientific arguments while the DeVere and Bacon groups are sadly, simply, specious. Please take a look at both with an even mind. (Heck, as a kid I used read the Van Danneken drivel on ancient astronauts.) Try an dig into the real history of that time too. Shakespeare (ie., his acting company) was not the most popular playwright of his time nor did his plays become what they are today until the early 19th century. As a matter of fact, quite a few English writers of the 18th and 17th century used Shakespeare as an example of crappy drama and comedy. True, little is known about Shakespeare of Stratford, but what is known connects him to the acting company that produced the plays attributed to him. Much more is known about the Earl of Oxford and Bacon but there’s nothing substantial that connects them to the plays. (btw, Oxford seems to be something of a ne’r-do-well, with a smattering of darkness - sort of a George W. Bush of his time.) But what do we know about Marlowe or Johnson, both much more popular writers and dramatists than Shakes in their time? Even in our own time, artists labor in obscurity, recognized only after their deaths. Think of Van Gogh, oops you did it didn’t you…pronounced Gogh as go and not as he (a Dutchman) did, as gock. ---
**Author:** ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/36 "2000-11-01T18:59:37Z")
**Five,** I know what Oxbridge means. I was asking why you particularly associated Oxford and Cambridge Universities with the elitist argument that S., being a grammar school boy, could not have known the things the author of the plays evidently did. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/37 "2000-11-01T19:19:50Z")
**TomH** : > [@](#): > > I know what Oxbridge means. I was asking why you particularly associated Oxford and Cambridge Universities with the elitist argument that S., being a grammar school boy, could not have known the things the author of the plays evidently did. Because those are the places the argument tends to come from. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/38 "2000-11-01T20:24:59Z")
> [@](#): > > (btw, Oxford seems to be something of a ne’r-do-well, with a smattering of darkness - sort of a George W. Bush of his time.) Rather worse than that, I believe–Harper’s ran a series of articles about this a few years back, and peopel on both sides of the arguement concurred that Oxford was an established pediophile. The fact that half the sonnets were written to a youth is one of the Oxford arguements, albeit a silly one. The same series of articles made much of ben Johnson’s famous comment that Shakesphere had “Small Latin and less Greek”. The Oxford camp made much of this, but it seems to me that “small Latin” by Elizabethian standards was likely pretty impressive by todays. I do think that Ben Johnson is the best positive evidence that Shakespere-the-playright and Shakespere-from-avon were the same: Ben Johnson’s identity is established, the fact that he was good friends with Shakespere is established, and he famously refered to Shakeshere-the-playright as the “Swan of Avon” – pretty solid evidence. Unfortunatly, Harper’s back issues are not on line, but i highly recomend the issue. it shoudl be easy to find at a library, bout 2 years old. hAd several articles by serious scholors on both sides of the issue. ---
**Author:** ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/39 "2000-11-01T21:02:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Because those are the places the argument tends to come from. I don’t think it is, actually. From a quick trawl of the Oxfordian and Baconite websites I haven’t been able to establish any particular connection between the argument in question and Oxford or Cambridge University. In fact, I would guess that a good number of people at those universities know enough about Shakespeare to see why the argument is rubbish. Of course, if you have any evidence to the contrary I’d be interested to see it. ---
**Author:** ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099/40 "2000-11-01T21:06:32Z")
In fact, based on the spelling used on most of the web sites advancing the argument, it would appear that the argument tends to come from North America. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare-vs-bacon/39099.md?page=3)