Reading 1

Unit 1- Reading 1

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Could Shakespeare Have Written Shakespeare’s plays?

Literary detectives have uncovered many facts about William Shakespeare. Still, the most important question of all remains: Did he really write the Shakespeare plays? Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, the Earl of Southampton (Shakespeare’s patron), and even Queen Elizabeth herself have at times been suspected of writing them.

The sheer volume of Shakespeare’s work—37 plays, 154 sonnets, 2 other poems, and an elegy—has led to suggestions that “William Shakespeare” was actually several people, not one.

Oxford vs. Stratford.

The strongest current debate is between groups known as the Oxfordians and the Stratfordians. Oxfordians say that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays under the pen name William Shakespeare. Stratfordians, on the other hand, say that the works were all written by William Shakespeare, an actor known to have been born at Stratford in 1564. The challenge for both sides is to produce solid evidence. So far, neither side has come up with much.

The Oxfordians’ case

Oxfordian say the actor Shakespeare was too poorly educated to have been the author of the plays. He was the son of a tradesman, and there is no record that he had any schooling. There is no evidence that he ever travelled outside Southern England. He was just an actor and an occasional real estate investor.

His will mentions no writings and there is no evidence he ever owned the book. A background like that could not have been adequate for such brilliant plays. The life of Edward de Vere, on the other hand, was more than adequate. His education was the best money could buy. He was very familiar with England’s noble families. He travelled to many of the locations important in Shakespeare’s plays, including France, Scotland and Italy.

The de Vere theory gained a lot of support after 1991. In that year, researchers began studying the handwritten notes and de Vere’s copy of a 1569 edition of the Bible. About 1000 Bible passages are underlined or otherwise marked. Nearly 25 percent of them match up with parts of Shakespeare’s work.

Probably not a coincidence, say the Oxfordians. For example, part of Act V in The Merchant of Venice speaks of a good deed shining out “in a naughty world.” One of the passages de Vere underlined in his Bible contains the phrase “a naughty and crooked nation among whom ye shine as lights in the world”.

The Stratfordians’ case

Stratfordians reply, “Why look beyond William Shakespeare of Stratford?” He was not the backward son of a lowly family, as many claim. His father was a prosperous merchant who held the town’s highest office (high bailiff). The King’s New School in Stratford offered an excellent education.

Although school records cannot be found, it is likely that the town’s high bailiff sent his son there. Shakespeare moved to London in the late 1580s, in his early twenties. There, he became famous and wealthy as an actor and as London’s leading playwright.

And certain aspects of his life seem to match better with the plays than de Vere’s do. For example, the perceptive portrayal of emotional depression in Hamlet seems to indicate that the author had experienced the ailment. Hamlet was written around the year 1600, 4 years after William Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnett, died at the age of 11.

Stratfordians also point out that the de Vere theory assumes an unlikely hoax. The Oxford camp claims that de Vere wanted to hide his authorship because it went against protocol for the noble class. A highborn earl simply should not be writing plays for common people.

To give de Vere cover, William Shakespeare of Stratford must have agreed (probably for pay) to serve as a front man. The Stratfordians point out that, for this to be true, Shakespeare’s many friends and acquaintances were either blind enough to be fooled by it, or willing to be in on the trick.

The same goes for de Vere’s friends and acquaintances, including the very intelligent Queen Elizabeth. The part hardest to believe is that a plan like that could be sustained for decades without the secret being revealed. Another difficulty for the Oxfordians is that the 17th Earl of Oxford died in 1604.

Many of the greatest plays were produced after this date. Macbeth, for example, dates from 1606-1607 and The Tempest from 1611. A great deal of careful work has confirmed these dates, and most Oxfordians reluctantly concede that de Vere’s death preceded the appearance of these plays.

But the Oxford camp persists in their position. They argue that de Vere wrote them before he died and that they were brought out as needed for performance. In addition, the texts of many Shakespeare plays contain references to events after 1604.

The Oxfordians say someone must have added contemporary references to make the plays look timely. Any debate centered on speculation alone will probably last a very long time. Neither side in this debate seems likely to accumulate the evidence necessary to settle the matter.

As one researcher, Al Austin, summarizes the controversy, “Those who believe de Vere was Shakespeare must accept an improbable hoax as part of it, a conspiracy of silence involving among others, Queen Elizabeth herself”. Those whose side with the Stratford man must believe in miracles.