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Who Wrote Shakespeare?Dateline: 27th June, 2004Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford? Francis Bacon? Christopher Marlowe? Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembrokeshire? William Shakespeare? I am tempted to claim that it wasn't Shakespeare who wrote the plays, but someone else of the same name. Silly? Of course, but then so - in my humble estimation - are the claims for de Vere et al. The reason for the claims, of course, is that the believers cannot accept that a grammar school boy from the Midlands could possibly write plays of such complexity and literary merit: it must have been someone with a better education, probably an aristocrat. Hence the choice of de Vere and Mary Sidney, sister of Sir Philip Sidney. But certainly a better education. Marlowe, for example, although the son of a shoemaker, at least attended the King's School, Canterbury, and Corpus Christi, Cambridge, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1584 and his Masters three years later. And Bacon, the the son of Nicolas Bacon, the Lord Keeper of the Seal, had gone to Trinity, Cambridge, at the age of twelve. Obviously far better candidates! What snobbery! And no one can explain why any - with the obvious exception of the Countess of Pembroke, given the opposition to the idea of female involvement in theatre at the time - they should want to write under a pseudonym, particularly under the name of a respected actor. Why should Marlowe, who was fiercely proud of his own work, do so? Why should de Vere? After all, he published (not terribly good) poems under his own name. And anyway, he died before a number of the plays were written. Why should Bacon? There was no perceived gulf between being a scientist and a creative writer in those times. Being a playwright would have enhanced his reputation, not diminished it. We have an actor called William Shakespeare, working for the company which performed plays by William Shakespeare. We have contemporary records of said William Shakespeare. We have the name William Shakespeare on the published versions of his plays (The First Folio - admittedly published after his death) and we have Ben Jonson's poem inscribed To the memory of my beloved, which begins
And we have the dedication of the First Folio - by John Heminge and Henry Condell to the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery - which tells us they are publishing the Folio
There's an old scientific principle, stretching right back to mediaeval philosopher William of Occam (or Ockham) and hence calld Occam's Razor. The principle states that one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed. In other words, the simplest explanation which meets the facts is usually the right one. So we have plays said to be written by William Shakespeare, both by tradition and by contemporary witnesses. We have an actual historical figure - William Shakespeare - known as both actor and playwright. We have the first published edition of his work (1623), with dedications and firm attribution to him. Why, then, should we even consider that someone else might have written the plays? Let us apply Occam's Razor and shave away all explanations but the most simple, and what are we left with? That William Shakespeare wrote the plays of Wlliam Shakespeare. Makes sense to me! Articles Indices:
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