# William Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 8, 2019, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228 "2019-04-08T16:37:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/41 "2019-04-09T00:55:24Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I read the seven-page paper. Good! So tell us then: which coincidence, or whatever, did you find most surprising or odds-against? What’s your comment on, for example, the argument about astronomy? ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/42 "2019-04-09T00:59:50Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Sorry. You failed the homework assignment. 🙂 You deliberately chose a weak assertion to attack, not a challenging one. That’s because the entire paper consisted of weak assertions. > [@septimus](#): > > And – " I also scrolled to the bottom of the last page" – you admit that you couldn’t be arsed to even read 7 pages. You are deliberately misinterpreting what I wrote. I read the entire paper. When I got to the last page, I scrolled down, looking for a bibliography, and found none. All I found was a fancy logo. > [@septimus](#): > > I hold in my hand Mark Anderson’s book, which has _158 pages of endnotes_, in a smallish font. Yes, that’s a Hundred Fifty-Eight pages with an H. And you complain that a summary chosen for brevity lacks notes. Wow! You’re playing games with us, **septimus**. You tell us to read a paper, we read it, then you tell us that the real answer is somewhere else. You’re trying to send us on a scavenger hunt. Stop playing silly games and show us your evidence. If it exists, you ought to be able to summmarize it here. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/43 "2019-04-09T01:00:46Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But it’s also true that Edward de Vere’s [crest](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gV3Jiqh5L2c/Vn-qvrI3GJI/AAAAAAAAAoY/49ACnqfHN8c/s320/Pic%2BOxford%2527s%2Bemblem.jpg) was a lion shaking a spear. So de Vere can also claim a close connection to the name Shake-speare. Did he ever actually claim a close connection to the name Shake-speare? ---
**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:** [April 9, 2019, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/44 "2019-04-09T01:04:27Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > Here’s a challenge for you, **septimus** : Why don’t YOU tell us about the most compelling evidence for Oxford, instead of giving us homework assignments and making us go look for it? I think the most compelling evidence is de Vere’s library. Scholars have found that there are passages in his books that are underlined and these passages are related to lines or characters from the Shakespeare plays. How does one explain this? One obvious explanation is that de Vere was making notes in his books while planning out works he was writing. It’s hard to see how William Shakespeare of Avon would have been able to have this kind of access to de Vere’s library. Obviously, de Vere didn’t make these notes after the plays were written; orthodox Shakespeareans insist de Vere was dead when the latter plays were performed. Some might theorize that there’s a conspiracy at work; somebody who supports the idea of de Vere’s claim may have gone in to his library years later and underlined lines from his book so the evidence would be discovered later. But I feel that puts the implausibility ball firmly in the Avon court. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/45 "2019-04-09T01:06:07Z")
Detractors might want to present evidence that the Wriothesley family were indeed Shakespeare’s patrons since Oxfordians assert there’s no evidence for this. (No, the dedications are obviously circular and useless.) > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But it’s also true that Edward de Vere’s [crest](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gV3Jiqh5L2c/Vn-qvrI3GJI/AAAAAAAAAoY/49ACnqfHN8c/s320/Pic%2BOxford%2527s%2Bemblem.jpg) was a lion shaking a spear. So de Vere can also claim a close connection to the name Shake-speare. Yes. Oxford was in need of a pen name, and might have chanced upon Will Shakespeare (who reminded him of the “Thy Will Shakes Spears” compliment once paid to him by a friend). I imagine he said “Aha!” and invited the young Stratfordian for a pint of ale! It was about that time that Shaksper suddenly had his application to the College of Heralds approved and inexplicably became rather wealthy. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/46 "2019-04-09T01:09:28Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Detractors might want to present evidence that the Wriothesley family were indeed Shakespeare’s patrons since Oxfordians assert there’s no evidence for this. (No, the dedications are obviously circular and useless.) > > Yes. Oxford was in need of a pen name, and might have chanced upon Will Shakespeare (who reminded him of the “Thy Will Shakes Spears” compliment once paid to him by a friend). I imagine he said “Aha!” and invited the young Stratfordian for a pint of ale! > > It was about that time that Shaksper suddenly had his application to the College of Heralds approved and inexplicably became rather wealthy. Admittedly, I don’t know that much about this. I always put this whole ‘Shakespeare didn’t write the plays’ thingy as, well, another loony (irony with that name) CT. But, isn’t’ the onus on you to provide proofs, not on the other side to prove a negative? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs, and all that? ---
**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:** [April 9, 2019, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/47 "2019-04-09T01:10:50Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Did he ever actually claim a close connection to the name Shake-speare? No, Edward de Vere never said that he was writing plays under the name Shakespeare. Of course, William Shakespeare of Avon never said that either. Shakespeare the man never referred to himself as a poet or playwright and never claimed any connection to Shakespeare the writer. Th first person who said that William Shakespeare the businessman and Shakespeare the writer was the same person was Ben Johnson. And he did it seven years after William Shakespeare’s death. For some reason, nobody in the theater world ever referred to William Shakespeare as a writer at any point in his lifetime. ---
**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:** [April 9, 2019, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/48 "2019-04-09T01:12:57Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs, and all that? We’re not saying the Shakespeare plays were written by aliens. We’re suggesting they may have been written by a person using a pen name. That’s not an extraordinary claim. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/49 "2019-04-09T01:13:13Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Good! So tell us then: which coincidence, or whatever, did you find most surprising or odds-against? What’s your comment on, for example, the argument about astronomy? The paper doesn’t provide any evidence that Shakespeare had any sophisticated knowledge of astronomy at all. The authors simply say, “Scientists have observed that Shakespeare’s record of astronomical knowledge…” What scientists? What did they observe? Like a lot of assertions in that paper, there are no quotes or citations to support this. Here’s an example of astronomy in Shakespeare, from _Much Ado About Nothing_: Doubt that the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love. Yeah, that’s definitely some advanced astronomical stuff, particularly the part about the sun moving. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/50 "2019-04-09T01:14:30Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > … Stop playing silly games and show us your evidence. If it exists, you ought to be able to summmarize it here. Oh, bullshit! You haven’t even read the 7-page paper. You’re all welcome to read Anderson’s book — do you need the ISBN number? And I posted links to three websites. If there’s serious and respectful interest I’ll post some notes, but so far Zero of you have even read the brief 7-page article AFAICT. And recall that I did NOT start this thread. And frankly I find most of the comments thus far inane and insulting. ETA: Why don’t YOU work on the opposite case? Is there proof that the Wriotheseleys were Shakespeare’s patrons? Surely you grasp why this is relevant. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/51 "2019-04-09T01:32:30Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Admittedly, I don’t know that much about this. I always put this whole ‘Shakespeare didn’t write the plays’ thingy as, well, another loony (irony with that name) CT. But, isn’t’ the onus on you to provide proofs, not on the other side to prove a negative? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs, and all that? Did you read the 7-page paper, **XT**? It’s already a terse summary of a few points; to summarize that summary would be absurd. As I’ve said, if I detect any sincere interest I’ll point out which arguments I consider most interesting. As is AFAICT nobody has even read the 7-page summary yet. Or they did, but didn’t find the “Baptista Minola of Padua” coincidence to be surprising. And weren’t troubled that > [@](#): > > Henry Peacham, in The Compleat Gentleman [1622], praised Oxford above all other writers among the Golden Age writers during the reign of Queen Elizabeth — and his list makes no mention of any William Shakespeare. The traditional rebuttals to Oxfordian points tend to be amusing. The peculiar dedication _“From A never writer to an ever reader”_? That’s an “inside joke we’ll never be able to decipher.” :smack: The peculiar dedication in _Shake-speare’s Sonnets_? “W.H.” is a printer’s error for W.S and “our ever-living poet” refers to God. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/52 "2019-04-09T01:46:50Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Oh, bullshit! You haven’t even read the 7-page paper. Seriously? That’s your response—to accuse me of lying? And once again, instead of providing some evidence for your claim, you tell us to go read something else. And _maybe_ if we do all this assigned reading and report on it uncritically, you’ll tell us the Big Secret. More diversion, more bobbing and weaving, more games. You are not arguing in good faith. I’m done with you. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Lurker\_Above](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Lurker\_Above](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lurker_Above)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/53 "2019-04-09T01:48:21Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > We’re not saying the Shakespeare plays were written by aliens. We’re suggesting they may have been written by a person using a pen name. That’s not an extraordinary claim. But you can’t pretend that there are only two options, Shakespeare or Oxford. It’s four or fiive-ish big claims: [ul]Shakespeare is too low-born and uneducated to rite gud.[/ul] [ul]Someone else decided to use him as a front-man to put on all his plays. [/ul] [ul]And out of the entire population of English writers, that man is Oxford. [/ul] [ul]This was widely known enough that people of the time would praise Oxford’s plays. (the author of septimus’ link makes a big deal of people praising Oxford’s work, quoting Gabriel Harvey, William Webbe, George Puttenham, John Marston, Francis Meres, Edmund Spenser, John Soowthern, and George Chapman. I also note that is is the part of the paper where the author actual puts in an effort to use references. Their presence proving that he _could_ use them elsewhere, but chooses not to.)[/ul] [ul]But secret enough that not one letter survives that says anything like “Oxford’s the best playwright! Go see his stuff! It’s being put on under his pen name Shakespeare, but that’s a secret so don’t tell anyone!”[/ul] ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/54 "2019-04-09T02:09:13Z")
> [@The\_Lurker\_Above](#): > > [ul]But secret enough that not one letter survives that says anything like “Oxford’s the best playwright! Go see his stuff! It’s being put on under his pen name Shakespeare, but that’s a secret so don’t tell anyone!”[/ul] But it _was_ a secret. Those in the know would also have known that Oxford and Her Majesty wanted this secret preserved. Nobody would blurt it out, though they might leave hints. And plenty of hints there were! For example, [Will. Monox may have been used at least once as a pseudonym for Oxford]([https://books.google.co.th/books?id=ekygCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT91&lpg=PT91&dq="will.+monox+(hast+thou+never+heard"&source=bl&ots=yR0vssxxwZ&sig=ACfU3U2pdtkX9ONOH4hN81dRyjfoXT896w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwix\_fmg9cHhAhWXc3AKHefkCxYQ6AEwAHoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q="will.%20monox%20(hast%20thou%20never%20heard"&f=false)](https://books.google.co.th/books?id=ekygCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT91&lpg=PT91&dq=%22will.+monox+(hast+thou+never+heard%22&source=bl&ots=yR0vssxxwZ&sig=ACfU3U2pdtkX9ONOH4hN81dRyjfoXT896w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwix_fmg9cHhAhWXc3AKHefkCxYQ6AEwAHoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22will.%20monox%20(hast%20thou%20never%20heard%22&f=false)). The link I found to the quote is from a book that argues against the Oxfordian hypothesis. But if merely Shakespeare, why the need for the peculiar pseudonym? Moreover, Greene detested Shakespeare; why would he have dined with him? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/55 "2019-04-09T02:23:05Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > And once again, instead of providing some evidence for your claim, you tell us to go read something else. And _maybe_ if we do all this assigned reading and report on it uncritically, you’ll tell us the Big Secret. More diversion, more bobbing and weaving, more games. > > You are not arguing in good faith. I’m done with you. _ **So you can’t even deign to answer, in your #52, the questions I just asked in #51? Got it.** _ And, see my last post where I addressed a specific complaint with a specific citation. _I hope to continue to do so with sincere respectful comments._ But no, I don’t plan on typing in the entirety of an Oxfordian book by hand, nor composing a 90-page dissertation before we can move forward. Nor will I speak politely to someone who cannot cope with the trivial “homework” I assigned. 🙂 ---
**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:** [April 9, 2019, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/56 "2019-04-09T02:27:33Z")
> [@The\_Lurker\_Above](#): > > But secret enough that not one letter survives that says anything like “Oxford’s the best playwright! Go see his stuff! It’s being put on under his pen name Shakespeare, but that’s a secret so don’t tell anyone!” I won’t address the other issues you raised because they’re not anything I ever said. But I will repeat that nobody ever said William Shakespeare from Avon was a writer at any point in his entire life. People did say that Edward de Vere wrote poems and plays and did say that he used a pen name. That doesn’t prove that de Vere wrote the Shakespeare poems and plays. But it’s more evidence than there is for William Shakespeare of Avon. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Lurker\_Above](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Lurker\_Above](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lurker_Above)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/57 "2019-04-09T02:38:51Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > But it _was_ a secret. Those in the know would also have known that Oxford and Her Majesty wanted this secret preserved. Nobody would blurt it out, though they might leave hints. It’s not a secret, the author of you paper quoted at least 8 people in the know (plus the queen?) Every one of whom was perfectly happy to ‘hint’ that they were in the know. And how do we know he (and the queen?), wanted this kept a [del]secret[/del] openly known, yet never written down, exactly? Your source is more than happy to demand direct, written evidence of Shakespeare’s literacy, education, travel, language skills, etc. And then conclude (or really heavily imply) that he must be illiterate, uneducated, untraveled, and monolingual when he can’t find any. If we hold Oxford to the same standard how do we know that he wanted his authorship of the plays to be [del] secret[/del] never recorded. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Lurker\_Above](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Lurker\_Above](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lurker_Above)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/58 "2019-04-09T02:45:05Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But I will repeat that nobody ever said William Shakespeare from Avon was a writer at any point in his entire life. If you want to suggest that Shakespeare the dude in London, and Shakespeare from Avon are different people I’m willing to see what evidence you have. Thought that would mean that all the ‘Shakespeare from Avon is too uneducated to write great plays’ arguments are unusable. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/59 "2019-04-09T03:17:06Z")
This is the argument from incredulity fallacy, septimus. The arguments you are making, and more importantly _the way in which you are making them_ are classic conspiracy theory tactics. Give enough people enough time, and they will come up with amazing coincidences that actually do ‘give pause’ even though they are meaningless. Find enough of them and collect it all together and it can not only look like actual data, but even if none of it holds together, when one coincidence is questioned you can just say, ‘but what about all the others? And put all together it certainly can’t ALL be coincidence!’ The last statement inoculates you against any specific criticism of one of the specific claims. The big clue is the notion that we have to read it all first before you will debate any of it, and that we are supposed to pick out the one that is most amazing. That primes the reader to over-weight the coincidences and it helps engage both motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, so people don’t think too hard about how unlikely something really is and are most receptive to the claim. I think you are smart enough and have certainly been around enough to see the flaws in this kind of presentation if it was done to you over a subject you strongly disagreed with. But it snuck up on you here. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/60 "2019-04-09T03:24:05Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Good! So tell us then: which coincidence, or whatever, did you find most surprising or odds-against? What’s your comment on, for example, the argument about astronomy? Coincidences? That’s your evidence? Coincidences are a tell of CT arguments. As soon as someone starts talking about coincidences instead of evidence, the game’s over. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > For some reason, nobody in the theater world ever referred to William Shakespeare as a writer at any point in his lifetime. I’m not sure what you mean by this. There are multiple references in the theater world to the better playwrights. Both Shakespeare and De Vere are mentioned. [Shakespeare Documented](https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/exhibition/playwright-actor-shareholder/contemporary-accounts-and-critical-responses-plays): > [@](#): > > Shakespeare is first mentioned as a playwright in 1592, when he had already written at least five plays: The Comedy of Errors, Titus Andronicus, and Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3. By 1598, a literary critic attributes a dozen plays to him, including one that is now considered lost, Love’s Labors Won. > > Shakespeare’s contemporaries gossiped about him, and read, saw, and responded to his plays. Evidence for Shakespeare’s prominence in the playwriting community appears in manuscript and print, including title pages, literary anthologies, and literary criticism by his contemporaries. Occasionally, we encounter more subtle glimpses of the theatrical network at work–for example, diary entries, or in one instance, a conversation with Shakespeare about a play’s author, recorded by Sir George Buc, Master of the Revels, who was responsible for censoring plays for performance in the early 17th century. Original documents are linked from that page. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228.md?page=4)