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William Shakespeare: Did he write his plays?

Miss Shelf

Miss Shelf

New Member
I read an article in my city newspaper by James J. Kilpatrick today about the eternal question, "did Shakespeare really write those plays?" and the other possibilities. I've always wondered if perhaps Shakespeare's wife might have been the author, I guess that's as good a guess as any. What do you think?
 
Interesting, but I'm looking for opinions from people here. In the Kilpatrick article, he says he thinks DeVere was a terrible poet, so he doubts it was DeVere. I have often wondered how Shakespeare, being a relatively poor English guy, could have written about Italians unless he talked to people who had been to Italy and told him stories that gave him ideas.
 
I believe Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and he wrote the plays. I see no reason to doubt this, and what little "evidence" I've read in favour of de Vere or Bacon or whoever seems so spurious and strained that I haven't looked into it any further.

Miss Shelf said:
I have often wondered how Shakespeare, being a relatively poor English guy, could have written about Italians unless he talked to people who had been to Italy and told him stories that gave him ideas.
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Scholars think he must have read English translations of Italian works available at the time. Stories in Boccaccio's Decameron provided him with ideas for Two Gentlemen of Verona and Cymbeline, and Ariosto's Orlando Furioso is a source for Much Ado About Nothing.
 
Now that's the first I've heard of him reading translated works. I always wondered how he came up with "Romeo and Juliet".
 
He famously read North's translation of Plutarch as a source for Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Julius Caesar.

The following text is given as a source for Romeo and Juliet:

Brooke, Arthur (?-1563). The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (English translation in 1562)

Info from this page, which lists the plays and their sources:

Shakespeare's Sources
 
Miss Shelf said:
I've always wondered if perhaps Shakespeare's wife might have been the author, I guess that's as good a guess as any. What do you think?
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Were women allowed to write in his time? I remember reading that women could not act in plays.
 
I have read a fair number of these sorts of articles. I have 2 real main points.

Firstly, I think that people will always come out with this type of thing. Is Elvis alive? Was Monroe a muder? Is Lord Lucan alive and living in "blah blah land" If there is an article to be written and money to be made then people will write the article. I don't really have much faith in most conspiracy type stuff.

Secondly, does it really matter who wrote the plays? They are wonderful. I don't think a name really makes any difference. Joe Blogs or Shakespear, it's the plays themselves that are important.
 
I like to believe he wrote them himself. I took many drama and Shakespear classes in HS and college and we went over some of the theories but I like to think he was a genius and did it all himself.
 
Yes, maybe Shakespeare was yet another one of the queen's lovers and she paid him to allow her to write under his name! :D
It was common for artists to be patronised by aristocracy etc in those days wasn't it?
Seriously, I happen to like "Shakespeare" and I find it distracting to think about who wrote what under what name especially 500 years after the fact

sirmyk said:
Were women allowed to write in his time? I remember reading that women could not act in plays.
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Women were allowed to write. They were not allowed to be actresses because it was thought that actors had very loose morals and actresses would become harlots. They were right on that, weren't they? :D
 
I think that what makes it such a mystery is that so little is known about Shakespeare's life. If we knew as much about him as we know about Elizabeth I, then there wouldn't be this much debate.
 
Did I say 500 years? I don't believe I did that!! Maths is not my strong point!! :D Was the queen an actress? Or was that where the loose morals of the time came from? A fine example, I must say! :p
 
Wabbit said:
Firstly, I think that people will always come out with this type of thing. Is Elvis alive? Was Monroe a muder? Is Lord Lucan alive and living in "blah blah land" If there is an article to be written and money to be made then people will write the article. I don't really have much faith in most conspiracy type stuff.
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I'm in agreement here. Conspiracy theories really bore me. I don't think there is really any way to difinitively say who wrote something four hundred and fifty years ago. If anything, maybe he took a "team approach" to writing like many of the other authors we today view as being classic. Either way, I've really got to go with "does it really matter?" His writing is great, no matter who wrote it.
 
This new book by Mark Anderson is getting a lot of good press. He finds in favor of Edward De Vere, and the book is praised for its thorough documentation and research. Shakespearean scholars take this possibility very seriously.

http://www.shakespearebyanothername.com/

If, like Wabbit, you don't care who actually wrote the plays, that's fine, but it is by no means an unimportant question. The influence of Shakespeare's language and psychological and humanistic portraiture are so enormous that the question goes beyond ordinary questions of anonymous authorship. The likelihood that the guy actually named Shakespeare did not author these works is one accepted by many Shakespearean scholars, but without sound historical research like Anderson's it is still speculation.

And comparing this question with whether Elvis is still alive is fatuous.
 
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