Was William Shakespeare illiterate with all his works shadow written?

Answer 1

Sorry. Unless another document of some sort is found lying around in somebody's archives, no one will be able to answer your question DEFINITIVELY.

We have to accept Shakespeare, like Homer before him, as not very well known, a construct, maybe even a fiction: MAYBE (a) a brash actor/producer who wrote plays better than anyone could ever expect one of his education and background, (b) a nobleman hiding his identity behind that brash actor for political or "gentlemanly" reasons, or (c) another playwright who was also a spy, caught in his double-dealing, who faked his own death and assumed the identity of that brash actor, or (d) a co-authorship involving any two of the above, or (e) none of the above.

I have just read Mark Anderson's "Shakespeare" by Another Name, which makes a 600-page case for (b) above. His nobleman of choice is Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, a fascinating man in his own right, both intellectual and wit, nobleman and rapscallion, reputed lover of Queen Elizabeth at one time (well, actually reputed lover of any number of people), ward of the court, officer of the court, and at times exile from the court.

It's an interesting read because de Vere is an interesting person, certainly complex enough to have been a character in one of Shakespeare's plays--or the author of all of Shakespeare's plays, and especially the sonnets and Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece.

There is certainly evidence that point to de Vere as a possible author of the plays, too, more convincing evidence than anyone could come up with for the brash actor from Stratford--except that de Vere's name is de Vere (or Oxford) and the name that got attached to most of the plays early on was Shakespeare, or Shakspere, or Shake-spear, or . . . well, getting one's name spelled right may not have been all that important to a brash actor from Stratford--who retired to Stratford and died there with no evidence of his having become an excellent playwright and poet!

However, as interesting as Anderson's book is, it is ultimately unconvincing. He argues persuasively that Will Shakspere could not have been the Shake-speare. He even argues that the well-known portrait of Shakespeare might well have been that of de Vere.

But finally he overstates his case. He insists on just too many biographical interpretations of the plays as being based on de Vere's (fascinating) life -- and with too little evidence. Well, his father-in-law might have been a good model for Polonius, and his affair with Queen Elizabeth may well have been like Bottom's with Titania, but eventually enough is enough. His second wife as Portia? Essex as Coriolanus AND Caliban? Southampton as the lover in the sonnets and the lover of Essex . . . er, Achilles, in Troilus and Cressida? Will Shakspere as William in As You Like It, de Vere himself as Touchstone, and the Muse as Audrey, who abandons William and chooses Touchstone? Interesting possibilties. Convincing? Not quite.

So I think the best way to answer your question is (1) whoever Shakespeare was, he certainly was NOT illiterate, for he had too much control over classical and continental sources and allusions, Elizabethan courtly intrigue, British history, and European geography for an illiterate. If the brash actor from Stratford is the sole author of the plays attributed to him, he was an autodidact of the very highest order!

(2) Whoever Shakespeare was, he probably did not work alone. If he were de Vere, he had all those "secretaries," like John Lyly, who worked with and for him. If he were the actor Will Shakspere, he had all those others in his troop--and all those source-texts he stole (some of which may have been de Vere's). Either he was a team or a plagiarist--or both.

Illiterate? NO! Shadow written? Probably somewhat, somehow. Certainly "shadowily" written.

Answer 2

This sort of speculation is remarkably similar to the modern crop of conspiracy theories about Area 51, JFK's assassination, the Moon landings, 9/11 and so on. Of course you can invent any hypothesis you like for anything, especially if it gives a plausible explanation of something that you find implausible in the official version. Specifically, here, how could Shakespeare have learned all these writing skills and background knowledge. But when the hypothesis creates, for other people, implausibilities that call for even more explanations than the ones you started from, then it's worthless.

If there was even one proven example of a similar case around Shakespeare's time of a shadow author using an illiterate front man, there would be somewhat more merit to the hypothesis.

Answer 3

It's a load of rubbish. Apart from the other reasons so ably advanced here, you can see the shadow stuff is just snobbery. It's insulting to say a great writer couldn't come from the people, and it had to be some aristocrat. There were planty of ways by which Shakespeare could have learned about the court, but how could a magnate have learnt about the 'rude mechanicals'? Also, Shakespeare's late plays have a strong five-act structure necessitated by the need to trim the candles in the indoor theatres they were written for, which were first built around 1608-9; this effectively scotches the theory his works were written by someone dying earlier, such as the Earl of Oxford, as propounded by T.J.Looney (I kid you not).

Answer 4

Definitely not. There is firsthand contemporary evidence, for instance by fellow playwright Ben Jonson, that Shakespeare wrote the plays and poetry; this was a popular "theory" in the 1970s because there is no record of The Bard having attended any college or university, BUT there is nothing whatever to it.

Answer 5

Some say that he was, some others that he was a genius. "He lacks the background, breeding, and education to write such astounding lyrics. His plays have a depth and a magnitude so great that only a university-educated man of high status could have."
Therefor, some claims are that someone else wrote his plays, a duke - that could never copy-write his works, since theater was considered that days as something vicious and unhealthy.
Shakespeare had been neither to Oxford nor to Cambridge, but his skills in composition was equal to that of any of university dramatists, his style was brilliant as theirs and his blank verse no less sonorous.

Answer 6

He was expressing remorse for not having brought a damn ladder to get up the that balcony and zoom zoom the boom boom.

Answer 7

I would think anyone with any brain at all would know better than ask that one.

Answer 8

I would caution against jumping to that conclusion.

Answer 9

That's a theory, but not fully proven

Answer 10

no.he wrote them himself.v sure.