# 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:** 18\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/121 "2019-04-10T21:01:09Z")
> [@TimfromNapa](#): > > 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). :dubious: If you mean Nathaniel Hawthorne, that would be a pretty neat trick, given that Mark Twain launched his literary career starting around 1865 and Hawthorne died in 1864. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/122 "2019-04-10T21:05:43Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > :dubious: If you mean Nathaniel Hawthorne, that would be a pretty neat trick, given that Mark Twain launched his literary career starting around 1865 and Hawthorne died in 1864. Oh, so we’re supposed to believe that Mark Twain just coincidentally started his writing career right after Hawthorne died? Yeah, right! What are the odds of that? #HuckleberryHawthorne ---
**Author:** ![Reindeer\_Flotilla](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reindeer_flotilla/32/3024_2.png) [@Reindeer\_Flotilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reindeer_Flotilla)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/123 "2019-04-11T19:39:48Z")
> [@Reindeer\_Flotilla](#): > > The ironic thing is in a century or two there will probably be a movement pushing that Samuel Langhorne Clemens wasn’t Mark Twain. A riverboat pilot and confederate volunteer foot soldier is the father of American literature? Balderdash! 🙂 > [@TimfromNapa](#): > > 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? Wow, just a little bit outside! ---
**Author:** ![JeffB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeffb/32/188_2.png) [@JeffB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JeffB)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/124 "2019-04-12T00:16:31Z")
Mark Twain was really Fenimore Cooper! ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/125 "2019-04-12T09:40:00Z")
No, _I’m_ Fenimore Cooper! And so’s my wife! ---
**Author:** ![GuyTanzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/48db29/32.png) [@GuyTanzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuyTanzer)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/126 "2019-04-12T22:16:08Z")
I seem to recall an argument that THE ODYSSEY wasn’t written by Homer, but by another man with the same name. So maybe there were two William Shakespeares running around? Honestly, this sounds like one of John Oliver’s How Is This Still A Thing? Whooooo Fuuuuuccckiiiing Caaaares? Can’t we just enjoy the plays? Or do what I do 98% of the time, which is to ignore them? It’s been a very long time since English Lit in college, and Troilus and Cressida just isn’t what I reach for when I want to relax in the evening after work. To paraphrase Robert Heinlein, we can’t even agree who did what to whom in the Second World War, and that’s still in living memory. Does anyone really think they’re ever going to definitively unscrew what happened in 1602? Good luck. Be sure to write. And sign it “William Shakespeare”. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/127 "2019-04-12T23:09:01Z")
> [@GuyTanzer](#): > > I seem to recall an argument that THE ODYSSEY wasn’t written by Homer, but by another man with the same name. The argument here is that _The Odyssey_ wasn’t written by a single individual at all, but was the product of generations of poets retelling the same cultural myth, gradually adding and removing elements over the course of several centuries. > [@](#): > > Honestly, this sounds like one of John Oliver’s How Is This Still A Thing? Whooooo Fuuuuuccckiiiing Caaaares? People interested in history or literature, mostly. If you don’t care, you’re not required to participate. > [@](#): > > To paraphrase Robert Heinlein, we can’t even agree who did what to whom in the Second World War, and that’s still in living memory. Does anyone really think they’re ever going to definitively unscrew what happened in 1602? Good luck. Be sure to write. And sign it “William Shakespeare”. Please. Robert Heinlein was a secret pen name for Gore Vidal, who didn’t want people to know he was writing something as _de classe_ as science fiction. ---
**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 12, 2019, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/128 "2019-04-12T23:14:37Z")
> [@GuyTanzer](#): > > I seem to recall an argument that THE ODYSSEY wasn’t written by Homer, but by another man with the same name. Rather that Homer is the name traditionally given to the author, but with no evidence that this was his actual name. It isn’t even certain whether Homer was a single author or a collaborative work. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/129 "2019-04-12T23:31:21Z")
Feh. You all know the truth and refuse to say it, so I will: [Theodor Adorno wrote all the Beatles’ songs as a Cultural Marxist assault on America.](https://rocknerd.co.uk/2016/10/13/theodor-adorno-of-the-frankfurt-school-wrote-all-the-beatles-songs-as-a-cultural-marxist-assault-on-america-possibly/): > [@](#): > > Theodor Adorno, a main figure in what became known as the Frankfurt School — proponents of an obscure academic approach to cultural criticism later branded “cultural Marxism” by communists annoyed they were too arty and not sufficiently doctrinaire — secretly wrote all the Beatles’ songs. > > This was, of course, in order to propagandise classical music back into popular culture[.] It’s all a plot. “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and walk you right into the gulag, “Imagine” there’s no religion except Stalinism, and the “Yellow Submarine” is creeping right up the East River with nuclear weapons to flatten Flatbush. ---
**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 13, 2019, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/130 "2019-04-13T01:28:30Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Please. Robert Heinlein was a secret pen name for Gore Vidal, who didn’t want people to know he was writing something as _de classe_ as science fiction. When he needed money in the early 1950s, Vidal wrote three mystery novels under the name of Edgar Box. They’re quite good, considering. Considering what? He wrote 10,000 words a day from Monday through Saturday and then spent Sunday editing. He turned the manuscript in on Monday. He did this three separate times. What kind of editing did he do when he could turn the words on like that? I don’t know for sure, but he would have edited de classe to déclassé, for example. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2019, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/131 "2019-04-13T23:49:55Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > The argument here is that _The Odyssey_ wasn’t written by a single individual at all, but was the product of generations of poets retelling the same cultural myth, gradually adding and removing elements over the course of several centuries. Can you clarify? Are you using “written” as the work inked or composed? Because my understanding is that those events were not contemporary. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2019, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/132 "2019-04-14T02:31:12Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Can you clarify? Are you using “written” as the work inked or composed? Because my understanding is that those events were not contemporary. Sorry, composed, not written. ---
**Author:** ![Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2019, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/133 "2019-04-14T13:46:39Z")
> [@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._ Did your post get inadvertently shortened? Since I think you meant to say \*they are about a different man with the same name who could fly, raise the dead, magically multiply food, control the weather, etc. \* it seems naive to conclude that this man is the same as the historical Jesus, whose most impressive party trick was turning bits of wood into a table. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2019, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/134 "2019-04-14T14:11:35Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > If several possible conclusions result, then the evidence is insufficient to make any particular claim. I have not run across that many claims by people who don’t think they have grounds to make any claim about the identity of William Shakespeare. Not sure that would be worth a post in MPSIMS, much less Great Debates. Me, I think a prolonged conspiracy to make some backwoods actor/poet into a superstar in Elizabethan London seems an unlikely hobby for academics capable of doing it. The absence of evidence seems evidence for skepticism. (and ridicule, given the tenor of academic politics at the time.) Tris * * * A rose by any other name might smell like a misidentified pseudo rose, indistinguishable from real roses. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/135 "2019-04-14T21:17:29Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > 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. No, it isn’t. The evidence that it’s the guy from Avon is that they both used the same name. De Vere using a fake name is the less simple version, and thus needs to proven. It is not remarkable at all that we don’t have somebody talking about Shakespeare writing before he wrote his stuff. That’s expected. He wasn’t famous yet, so why would anyone mention it? And he hadn’t written anything of note yet. The null hypothesis is that the guy who wrote the plays is the guy whose name was put on them. It’s on you to prove that someone else did so. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2019, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/136 "2019-04-14T22:57:40Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > No, it isn’t. The evidence that it’s the guy from Avon is that they both used the same name. De Vere using a fake name is the less simple version, and thus needs to proven. If I may be a bit pedantic, the town William Shakespeare is from is Stratford-upon-Avon, and is commonly referred to just as Stratford. (On another note, the propensity of septimus and other de Vere fans to call Shakespeare “Stratford” or “William of Stratford” is just wrong. His name was William Shakespeare; he was not called Stratford.) ---
**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 14, 2019, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/137 "2019-04-14T23:11:44Z")
The earliest hit I find for Shakespeare being referred to as the Bard of Avon is from accounts of the [Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769](https://books.google.com/books?id=E_sRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA455&dq=%22bard+of+avon%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSvPa32dDhAhWFwVkKHXi6DK0Q6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&q=%22bard%20of%20avon%22&f=false). Saying that he’s from Avon rather than Stratford may not be technically correct, but as an epithet it has a long history. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2019, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/william-shakespeare-wrote-shakespeare/832228/138 "2019-04-15T03:37:59Z")
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