Did Shakespeare really write all those plays, poems, etc? I’ve heard people say others wrote for him, but I don’t know what they’re basing this on.
Here is a web page asserting that Shakespeare’s plays were actually written by the 17th Earl of Oxford: http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/
Despite the fact that Oxford whatsisname died ten or more years before most of the plays were first performed or published, and plenty of people who knew the hick from Stratford make it perfectly clear who who wrote the plays.
Here’s a link from a PBS Frontline show a few years ago that covers both sides. But Will’s the man. Anyone who says otherwise is either an upper-class snob or has never heard of Occam’s Razor.
We discussed this topic a couple months ago here.
This topic has a very long history, going back a couple hundred years. You could make a decent sized library just by getting one copy of each book or paper written on it. Personally, I happen to like Who Wrote Shakespeare by John Michell, which gives a good overview of the subject.
What about the style of writing? All of you Shakespeare buffs, is the writing in generally the same style in all of the books? I only read 6 of them, and they do share a common thread of treating royalty as normal people with neuroses and problems.
An excellent site putting the conventional case can be found at: http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/will.html
Yes, he’s a fraud. I know, because I wrote all of the plays normally attributed to William Shakespeare, and all of the sonnets too.
If you take my four great tragedies as one long text string and sample the letters at the correct interval, you will come up with a hidden message confirming my authorship. I guess that wraps it up.