Was Shakespeare really a girl?

Answer 1

There is such a theory:
http://www.worldmagblog.com/blog/archives/005922.html

Answer 2

There is are theories (not taken really seriously) that Shakespeare was either Queen Elizabeth I of England, or (my personal favorite) that Shakespeare was really Anne Whateley, whose name appears first in the Warwickshire marriage records as being engaged to William. The day after this record appears, William Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway of Shotely who is now considered to be his legal spouse.

The theory is that Anne Whateley was so distraught about losing her beloved William, that she went to a convent in Italy and wrote all of Shakespeare's play. That is why we have the line about "Get thee to a nunnery," in Hamlet, and also why Shakespeare sets so many of his plays in Italy.

Oh, Elizabeth I was Shakespeare because she was so well acquainted with the goings on at the court and she was well acquainted with the legal system, but she couldn't admit she was Shakespeare because play writing was beneath her dignity.

So if you are into major conspiracies like Bush arranged 9-11, or the C.I.A. and the U.S. government had Kennedy assassinated, then either Elizabeth I or Anne Whateley is your girl.

Good question!

Answer 3

No. William Shakespeare was not a girl.

Were the plays we think of as "written by William Shakespeare" really written by a girl?
Almost as certainly, no.

In modern Shakespeare scholarship, there are plenty of "someone-else-wrote-Shakespeare" conspiracy theories. The three with the biggest cult followings are (in order) the Earl of Oxford, sir Francis Bacon, and Christopher Marlowe, whose spy activities presumably forced him to fake his own death in 1593.

The books that come out in support of these theories (with a few exceptions) usually read more like "The Da Vinci Code" than like serious scholarship. Most arguments of the sort have an academic or even political agenda that would understandably better the reputation and importance of the professors working on them if found to be true. For instance, academics who specialize in Sir Francis Bacon would be offered much more prestigious postings, more money, and have their pet poet idolized to no end, if they could ever come up with evidential proof that Bacon wrote Shakespeare.

The problem is that such proof simply doesn't exist. It's most likely that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, but even *that* doesn't have any iron-clad proof to back it up--save that at least a few of the plays he wrote were known and credited, in his lifetime and beyond, to him (and these plays are stylistically similar enough to the others to suggest their "less solid" connection to Shakespeare still holds up.

The question you ought to think on is, what if Shakespeare WERE a girl? Not whether he was, but IF he WERE. Think to yourself: what would it mean? In particular, who would have the most to gain from a sudden discovery that Shakespeare's plays were written by a woman--specifically, any woman, with no care as to which specifically?
I think you'll find those with the most to gain--at least in the way they understand the world--are those who work the hardest to prove it, and hope most earnestly that it's true.

No, Shakespeare was probably not written by a woman--but many people like to believe, or wish, that he was. And there's generally nothing wrong with that--even the most fanatical academics who work on proving such unprovables are making Shakespeare scholarship lively and contributing to its dialogue.

Answer 4

Mary Sidney Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke (1561 - 1621) was the leader of the most important literary circle in English history. Hundreds of pieces of circumstantial evidence make many people wonder if she wrote the works attributed to William Shakespeare.

Answer 5

This is not so. Many scholars believe that Shakespear who had a limited education did not write the plays and sonnetts attributed to him but that they were written by Sir Francis Bacon a noted essayist of the time. He would not have put his names {Bacon} to the plays because the feeling at that time was that people of a lesser intellect wrote such things as plays.

Answer 6

My dear, in the age when Shakespeare lived, girls were not allowed the level of education necessary to produce Shakespeare's works. All girls were allowed to study were readring, writing, piano, singing and ballroom dancing.

Answer 7

actually there is a theory out there that Queen Elizabeth actually wrote the plays under the pseudo name Shakespeare

Answer 8

Good hell no, Shakespeare was not a girl. My hell, the things people believe on this site are mind numbing.

Answer 9

i've heard this but, in recent years i hear some scholars believe that SHAKESPEARE was more than one person, i don't know if they are right i only know that TWELFTH NIGHT AND THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ARE MY TWO FAVORITE SHAKESPEAREAN PLAYS

Answer 10

No but boys had to play the girl parts.

Answer 11

The word "girl" was not gender specific 500 years ago so I'm afraid he was a girl.