# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/101 "2019-04-09T16:59:27Z")
Nobody saved the documents from a local poet so they could be examined four centuries later? How unbelievable! I’d love to bring Shakespeare to the modern age. I think he would not believe the plays he wrote are still well known and performed. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/102 "2019-04-09T17:10:53Z")
> [@Isosleepy](#): > > The two most startling to me are the “Gentleman of many crowns” part, and the thing about the publishing rights of “Merchaunt of Venyce”. The argument about the publishing rights of _The Merchant of Venice_ becomes rather less startling when one remembers that in 1598 the theatre company Shakespeare was working for was the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. All that [the entry in the Stationers’ Company register](https://stationersregister.online/entry/SRO4109) means is that the printer, James Roberts, wasn’t to print the play without the permission of the patron of the company which had commissioned it. And that patron was certainly Lord Hunsdon, not Oxford. Nor is there any doubt that it was written for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, because when Roberts got round to printing it, [the titlepage said so](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_of_Venice#/media/File:Merchant_venice_tp.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/103 "2019-04-09T17:29:51Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Thanks for this, **bonzer**! It’s very useful. I _do_ remember you mentioning Hall; I do NOT remember that quote. It’s possible you posted it in a follow-up, after I had become disgusted with all the insults and hostility directed against me and had abandoned the thread. > > The point about Hall was just a step in a larger point which your post does nothing to refute. Can you confirm that no contemporary relative or in-law of Shakespeare ever produced a document or deposition suggesting they knew their relative was a famous poet/playwright? Small consolation I’m afraid. For we’ve seen this pattern from you across multiple threads on the matter. So back in 2010 you vaguely cited the astronomy argument. When [I dug out](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12382057&postcount=75) what was actually being claimed, you [graciously accepted](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12382631&postcount=77): > [@Did Shaksper write the Sonnets? \[edited title\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/77): > > > [@](#): > > > > In summary, it’s not the sudden absence of datable astronomical references in the plays after 1604 that’s striking. It’s that there are none before then either. > > Thanks for this, **bonzer**. I wanted to give Oxfordians at least some benefit of the doubt on their long string of coincidences, but as I see many that are not even “half-truths”, I lose interest in pursuing the others. Can I have the Mod retitle the thread: “Shaksper probably _did_ write the Sonnets (though gullible/skeptical septimus still isn’t _100% sure_)”? :smack: Yet every time that the subject has come up since you’ve trotted out this same argument. Furthermore, while you’re obviously at liberty to have changed your mind, having conceded its weakness then, you can’t really expect to get away with “but, but astronomy!” as an argument without specifically explaining to the rest of us why what you could acknowledge as weak in 2010 is so now convincing in 2019. Give it a few years, you’re likely to have forgotten the details and be blithely wittering on about John Hall and his (non-existent) letter(s) again. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/104 "2019-04-09T17:32:00Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Nobody saved the documents from a local poet so they could be examined four centuries later? How unbelievable! You know, of course, that we have plenty of documents from other playwrights and poets of that era? Christopher Marlowe Ben Jonson Francis Beaumont John Fletcher Thomas Kyd Robert Greene Robert Chapman John Lyly Thomas Nashe George Peel Arthur Golding John Ford … etc. Most of them were seldom read after their own time, but we have plenty of letters to and from them, original copies of their plays and poems, notes, and miscellaneous other documents. ---
**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:** [April 9, 2019, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/105 "2019-04-09T18:00:57Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Nobody saved the documents from a local poet so they could be examined four centuries later? How unbelievable! > > I’d love to bring Shakespeare to the modern age. I think he would not believe the plays he wrote are still well known and performed. In [Blackadder’s Back and Forth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM-Y1ch4b5c), traveling through time: > [@](#): > > \*\*Blackadder \*\*: [punches Shakespeare] That is for every schoolboy and schoolgirl for the next 400 years! Have you any idea how much suffering you’re going to cause? Hours spent at school desks trying to find ONE joke in “A Midsummer’s Night Dream”, wearing stupid tights in school plays and saying things like, “What ho, my Lord,” and, “Oh, look, here comes Othello talking total crap as usual.” > > [kicks Shakespeare] > > \*\*Blackadder \*\*: And THAT is for Ken Branagh’s endless, four-hour version of Hamlet. > > **William Shakespeare** : Who’s Ken Branagh? > > \*\*Blackadder \*\*: I’ll tell him you said that, and I think he’ll be rather hurt… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/106 "2019-04-09T18:04:10Z")
Who wrote Shakespeare’s works matters not a jot in the great scheme of things. What matters is those miraculous words. But all these amateur sleuths don’t seem at all interested in those other than as fodder for their ludicrous codes. I’ve been immersed in Shakespeare and the other playwrights of the time (Lyly, Peele, Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Marston, etc) for the best part of 50 years. The author of Shakespeare’s works was William Shakespeare, the ‘upstart crow beautified with our feathers’ as Greene maliciously put it. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/107 "2019-04-09T18:15:04Z")
GreenWyvern, your post is only partly true. We have no original copies from any published play of the period except a couple of pages from a Marlowe play. I don’t think we have many original unpublished plays either. Just about every Shakespeare play was published. There was then little reason, or expectation, that an original Shakespeare play would survive. You are probably correct though in saying we have more original documents from other playwrights than Shakespeare. I see this as simply a minor mystery rather than a major one. The original documents of many playwrights of the day are patchy in their survival. The likes of Jonson and Marlowe being an unfair comparison to Shakespeare. Johnson was a far more significant figure of his time than Shakespeare; Marlowe was an infamous scoundrel. Then, as now, society was obsessed with significant figures and infamous scoundrels. The Globe burnt down in 1612 or so. Shakespeare’s son-in-law asked that his own papers be burnt after his death. Shakespeare’s daughter took someone to court for stealing books(and papers?) from New Place a decade or two after Shakespeare’s death. That’s 3 prime instances of how many original Shakespeare documents could potentially have been lost or destroyed. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/108 "2019-04-09T18:22:10Z")
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like a lot (most?) of the argument against Shakespeare as writer boils down to “the absence of (direct) evidence is evidence of absence”. Is that right? One would think anybody making that argument (like, say Twain) would agree it’s a stretch of an argument in the best of cases. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/109 "2019-04-09T20:18:42Z")
a lot of it, yeah. Shakespeare’s life is not well documented by modern standards, which I think is what throws people off; we are accustomed to extensive documentation of people, and so when one finds out there are huge holes in the biography of someone in the past it seems weird. I can select almost any third-tier celebrity now and tell you a bazillion things about them in a moment - we were talking about Saturday Night Live in another thread, and Cecily Strong is on SNL, and in thirty seconds I can tell you… she was born in Springfield, IL on Feb 8, 1984, grew up on Oak Park., her parents are divorced, graduated from Cal Arts, is 5’7" and doesn’t seem to be married. That was easy, and she’s not actually all that well documented a celebrity. The thing is, people in the past weren’t that well documented. Royalty in those days were pretty well documented, as well as prominent nobility, but commoners usually died anonymous and even prominent ones like Shakespeare often didn’t leave much documented information. The fact there is no direct evidence Shakespeare went to school is not evidence he didn’t go, it’s evidence there’s just no record of it; it’s 99.9999% likely he did, if you know how things worked back then. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/110 "2019-04-10T00:43:10Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > a lot of it, yeah. > > Shakespeare’s life is not well documented by modern standards, which I think is what throws people off; we are accustomed to extensive documentation of people, and so when one finds out there are huge holes in the biography of someone in the past it seems weird. I bite my tongue every time I see a suggestion that Jesus was not a historical figure. Right, I think to myself. The books aren’t actually about a historical figure _they are about a different man with the same name._ ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/111 "2019-04-10T01:08:24Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > I’d love to bring Shakespeare to the modern age. I think he would not believe the plays he wrote are still well known and performed. There was an [Isaac Asimov story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Immortal_Bard)with that premise. ---
**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 10, 2019, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/112 "2019-04-10T01:17:28Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > I bite my tongue every time I see a suggestion that Jesus was not a historical figure. Right, I think to myself. The books aren’t actually about a historical figure _they are about a different man with the same name._ That’s not much of an argument. What’s the objection to saying that Jesus was a composite, idealized, or fictional figure rather than an actual single individual? The evidence doesn’t rule any of those out. As long as we keep to evidence rather than faith. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/113 "2019-04-10T13:08:29Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > What’s the objection to saying that Jesus was a composite, idealized, or fictional figure rather than an actual single individual? The evidence doesn’t rule any of those out. As long as we keep to evidence rather than faith. No objection to saying it. “Could have been” or “doesn’t rule it out” is not evidence of “was”. Same, more or less, as the idea that someone else wrote Shakespeare, or JFK was killed by the Mafia. A key element of conspiracy theories is to set it up so it’s “prove it wasn’t”, not “prove it was”. Regards, Shodan ---
**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 10, 2019, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/114 "2019-04-10T14:43:50Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > No objection to saying it. “Could have been” or “doesn’t rule it out” is not evidence of “was”. Same, more or less, as the idea that someone else wrote Shakespeare, or JFK was killed by the Mafia. A key element of conspiracy theories is to set it up so it’s “prove it wasn’t”, not “prove it was”. > > Regards, > Shodan The first part of this is wrong. Evidence-based reasoning starts with the available evidence and proceeds to conclusions wherever they lie. That’s what makes them different from CTs. If several possible conclusions result, then the evidence is insufficient to make any particular claim. Real science contains many such unresolved questions. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/115 "2019-04-10T14:50:43Z")
I would guess that Shakespeare in his day suffered from the “Oh, he’s too popular to be really good” school of thought. That idea is still in use today, and I bet four hundred years from now people will wonder who really wrote all that classic books attributed to the Maine peasant, barely educated in a public school system who became a world popular author of a million books in such a short time. After all, doesn’t his last name (KING) give a hint of royalty? ---
**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 10, 2019, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/116 "2019-04-10T15:29:58Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > After all, doesn’t his last name (KING) give a hint of royalty? I’m ROTFL. Rowling on the floor laughing. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/117 "2019-04-10T15:57:54Z")
From [this 2003 thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=171885) on the same subject: > [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > > [@Dread Pirate Jimbo](#): > > > > After reading some of the many theories and controversies on this subject, I am still prepared to use Occam’s Razor here: we know there was a Shakespeare, we know he was famous in London, we know he died pretty rich, considering his original station (son of a glover), we know all these poems and plays are attributed to him. The simple answer is that he is, in fact, the real deal. One day I hope the scholars who obsess over this issue will just give it up and concede that the British middle class might have produced a bone fide genius. Then maybe they can pursue studies of actual merit. > > Hear, hear! > > This is the most sensible statement I’ve ever seen written on this subject. Most of the Anti-Stratfordian argument is just intellectual snobbery. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/118 "2019-04-10T17:36:18Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The first part of this is wrong. Evidence-based reasoning starts with the available evidence and proceeds to conclusions wherever they lie. That’s what makes them different from CTs. If several possible conclusions result, then the evidence is insufficient to make any particular claim. Real science contains many such unresolved questions. Not sure what you mean by “the first part”. If you think I am objecting to your saying it, that’s wrong. If you think “Could have been” or “doesn’t rule it out” IS evidence of “was”, no it isn’t. If you are concluding something, then let’s see the evidence. If not, then fine - as mentioned, I see no objection to your stating it, any more than stating any other non-evidence-based statement. Like Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare. Regards, Shodan ---
**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 10, 2019, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/119 "2019-04-10T19:11:28Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Not sure what you mean by “the first part”. If you think I am objecting to your saying it, that’s wrong. If you think “Could have been” or “doesn’t rule it out” IS evidence of “was”, no it isn’t. > > If you are concluding something, then let’s see the evidence. If not, then fine - as mentioned, I see no objection to your stating it, any more than stating any other non-evidence-based statement. Like Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare. > > Regards, > Shodan Biblical research offers an interesting parallel to Shakespeare. From my reading on the subject (as with Shakespeare I am not a primary researcher but merely reporting on the work of those that are, as is true I believe of everyone else in this thread) there has been a long history - starting in the Victorian age just as the Shakespeare doubters debuted - of doubters about a historical Jesus. The difference is that these doubters, unlike the amateurs and cranks backing Bacon and Marlowe and Oxford and Queen Elizabeth, are actual subject matter experts. And unlike the near-unanimity of English scholars for Shakespeare, a substantial minority of actual working professors either doubt a historical Jesus or find the evidence insufficient. The evidence unquestionably is far less substantial than the evidence for Shakespeare, which as the Oxfordians keep telling us, is amazingly scanty. I have no interest in debating the issue, though. I just want to use it as contrast. Actual professional academics espouse both sides of a historical Jesus. No alternative Jesuses are put forward. The issues are clouded by the total lack of any contemporaneous records. No one totals up the coincidences found in sifting through all history. It is a legitimate academic argument rather than a conspiracy theory. ---
**Author:** ![TimfromNapa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@TimfromNapa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimfromNapa)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/120 "2019-04-10T20:17:55Z")
Funny, when I was 13, I read a piece in a Life Magazine from the early to mid 1970s by a scholar who claimed that Samuel Clemens was not the true author of the works attributed to Mark Twain. I forget who she argued was the real writer (Hawthorne, maybe). I cant find any reference to any controversy regarding the Clemens/Twain authorship, so her arguments must have been unsubstantiated. Anybody else out there remember this? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228.md?page=7)